


what doesn't kill me makes me want you more

by heartunsettledsoul, iconicponytail



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (the rating hath gone up), Mutual Pining, as such the rating will definitely go up soon, betty cooper wants to reinvent herself, clandestine makeouts, first they start investigating a mystery, jughead jones can't stand rich kids, lock picking and secret passageways, teenage hormones abound, the prep school AU of our dreams, then they start investigating each other, this is the exact opposite of a slowburn, what is veronica lodge up to?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2020-11-01 13:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20816165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul, https://archiveofourown.org/users/iconicponytail/pseuds/iconicponytail
Summary: Jughead rounds the corner of the building cautiously, unsure what the muffled scrabbling noise is or what he’s about to walk into. He needn’t have worried because the sight that greets him is more amusing than worrisome; a pair of very toned legs clad in black leggings are flailing spectacularly to wedge through the open window that their owner’s torso has already cleared. They’re sporting a pair of familiar spotless pink shoes that Jughead knows from lit class.He clears his throat. “Uh, Betty? You okay over there?”The legs stiffen and then an embarrassed voice responds. “I got locked out of the dorm.”or, the mystery-laden prep school au we all desperately needed





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (during SDCC)  
iconicponytail: I've been considering a prep school AU for a long time...  
heartunsettledsoul: library makeouts! creepy basements!  
iconicponytail: ......... seems like we have to  
heartunsettledsoul: our hands are forced  
inconicponytail: it would a disservice not to

_Killing me slow, out the window_  
_I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below_  
_Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes_  
_What doesn't kill me makes me want you more   
_\- Cruel Summer, Taylor Swift

* * *

Betty knows that burning excitement was not the logical emotion for a teenager to feel when her mother abruptly unenrolled her from Riverdale High—in the middle of the day, no less. Betty had been evil-eyeing Kevin for trying to pass notes during Spanish about the new kid, Joaquin, when she was called to the office and informed by Alice that, starting Monday, she would be attending Stonewall Prep. A boarding school.

Of course, knowing that excitement would make the whole ordeal more complicated, Betty used a lot of fake moping to her advantage: Alice purchased additional, non-uniform clothes for Betty while they catalog shopped for pleated skirts and oxfords. Her new bright pink Keds, a pair of black heeled boots for fall, a set of Stonewall-approved navy, emerald, and gray scrunchies. Alice layers on bribes to make sure Betty maintains the Cooper party line: a new laptop, leather-bound journals, and noise-cancelling bluetooth headphones—“Won’t these be _ so _helpful in the dorms, Betty?” 

The performance continues over the phone with Kevin that weekend. “I’m gonna miss you so much, Kev,” she pouts. This, at least, is true. Leaving Kevin will be the worst end of the deal. They’ve been inseparable since middle school, her savior after she and Archie hit puberty and hanging out with Archie every day became an emotionally exhausting roller-coaster for her hard-crushing thirteen-year-old self. 

“I just can’t believe Alice would do this. It’s almost October. The school year is well underway! Did you even know she was looking into boarding schools?”

Grateful that their conversation isn’t happening face-to-face, Betty grimaces. She wants to tell Kevin the truth, but she knows her best friend loves a secret far too enthusiastically to keep it. So she reads from her Alice-approved script, “I mean, she pressured me into applying this summer, but the deadline had already passed. I didn’t think anything would come of it and it didn’t seem like a worthwhile fight at the time.”

What Betty can’t say is _ Polly got pregnant and dropped out of college. My mom is paranoid I’ll fall head over heels for my non-existent high school boyfriend and end up the same way. _

What she _ really _ can’t say is: Maybe this is my ticket. Maybe this is how I tear up the other script, the predetermined path that is Riverdale High Betty Cooper’s life. Doomed to always get the A and never get the guy. Surrounded by small town kids destined to become replicas of their small town parents (with the exception of Kevin—the only place he’d ever don a police uniform would be in a Broadway show). 

Maybe Stonewall Prep is where she meets people who actually read the books assigned in English class. Where the girls don’t whisper cattily about her virginity in the locker room. Where boys—or really, just one boy, just _ one cute and intelligent guy _ might find the fact that she was passionate about intersectional feminism to be interesting instead of ‘intimidating’ or (in the insipid tones of Reggie Mantle) ‘frigid and bitchy.’

“Did you tell Alice this is abandonment? Of me? To the wild west of Riverdale High?” Kevin whines.

“Well, now you’ll have no excuse but to sit next to lonely Joaquin at lunch,” Betty teases, but underneath her sing-songing, she’s relieved to have a potential fallback option for Kevin. It eases her guilt over leaving him so readily.

“Have you told Archie yet?”

Betty peeks involuntarily out of her bedroom window. “No. I just worry he’s going to think it’s about him when, obviously, it’s not.”

Last May, Betty bucked up and asked Archie to the Spring Fling. He accepted, and Betty floated on air for two weeks straight, interpreting every one of Archie’s usual, platonic gestures of friendship as confirmation that he also felt something more. Then, on the dance floor, he’d given her a whole speech about how much he valued her _ purely as a friend, practically a sister. _Then he’d asked Betty if she thought he and Josie McCoy would make a good couple. She’d fled in a cascade of tears. Kevin picked up the pieces with a milkshake from Pop’s and a movie marathon over the weekend.

Archie and Betty were back on friendly and slightly awkward terms now after angst-ridden apologies and some weeks of distance over the summer. But he still walked on eggshells around her, sure she must still be in love with him. The arrogance of this was more than enough for Betty to realize she certainly wasn’t anymore.

Still, he deserves a proper goodbye, so she texts him Sunday morning that she’s transferring. Archie overacts his disappointment, demanding that they have a goodbye breakfast at Pop’s. Betty feels like she’s humoring him even though she’s certain that Archie probably feels the same way. He leads a parade of reminiscence over a shared order of fries and shakes. It’s nice, but she’s relieved to head home and finish packing afterward. 

That afternoon, surrounded by a flight of suitcases, forehead kissed by her father, belly full on a goodbye lunch of grilled cheeses, Betty gets in the car, uniform already on with the exception of her new pink sneakers—a stroke of defiance toward Alice, and if she’s being honest, how she plans to upset her own stereotype. Stonewall Prep Betty isn’t afraid to break a few rules. 

Winding up the wooded drive onto the Stonewall grounds, Betty has to suppress a grin. Her mother catches on. “See, I knew you’d change your tune once you saw it!”

This wasn’t the first goading Betty had to endure:

_ Almost everyone at Stonewall goes to an Ivy. Or little Ivies. _

_ Their average class size is only fifteen! Betty, look at this syllabus I pulled from the website. I would have killed to get this reading list. _

_ You could go out for field hockey! I loved field hockey when I was your age but of course Riverdale never had a team. _

_ And, in such a strict academic setting, I bet those kids aren’t even thinking about dating or partying. _(It had been difficult not to snort her orange juice out at that one.)

Her mother’s eyes linger on the pink shoes as they’re ushered into the principal’s office, but she’s on her best behavior and so Alice leaves the chastisement to a flickering glare. 

Principal Honey invites them into his office, and Betty puts on her best speaking-to-teachers voice as he praises her spectacular grades. “We very rarely take transfers after the deadline, but we also rarely receive such robust late applications as yours.”

_ You probably don’t get Alice Coopers calling in a fit of desperation, offering to pay full tuition even after the school year has begun, _Betty thinks, but she smiles and thanks him.

“I noticed that your transcripts list cheerleading, track and field, and your school newspaper as extracurriculars. It looks like you were interested in those on the application… oh, and field hockey is checked as well.” Betty clenches her jaw to keep from rolling her eyes at her mother. 

“Yes, I’m particularly interested in journalism,” she emphasizes.

The principal nods vaguely, almost as if he’s hesitant to divulge unfortunate news. “You’ll want to see Forsythe Jones about that. He’s the current editor of _ The Emerald Herald_, our award-winning student publication.”

_ Damn, _ these kids could not have preppier names if they tried. She files the name away for reference, already picturing a wealthy blonde water polo player with an inflated sense of being well-read but who still insists _ The Great Gatsby _ is a love story.

He hands her a folder emblazoned with the school crest. “In here you will find your schedule, class syllabi, and directions from each of your instructors on how they expect you to catch up with the material. Stonewall uses an alternating day schedule, allowing for longer class periods and more rigor.

“There is also a code of conduct for you to read and sign. I see that you’re already in uniform. We wear academic dress during all school and daytime meal hours. Evenings and weekends, casual dress is permitted, though the dress code will be enforced. But Ethel will go over this with you in just a moment, on the tour. She’s our student ambassador.”

Betty nods, eager to open the folder and pour over its contents, but because her mother is watching, she holds it in her lap.

“Oh, and your roommate will be Miss Veronica Lodge.” She notes that Mr. Honey’s tone shifts into something distinct and familiar. The announcement carries the same faux-casual lilt as Weatherbee when he had a new tutoring student for Betty’s caseload that was “bright but just not applying themselves.” Of course, she has no idea who Veronica Lodge is, but she can tell that Honey is hoping the sweet new girl will somehow curb her roommate. 

What he doesn’t know yet is that Stonewall Betty is determined to break free of her transcript’s mold. Perhaps Veronica Lodge will help Betty more than Betty can help her. 

There’s a knock at the door. “That will be Ethel. We’ll have all of your things taken up to your room. Mrs. Cooper, would you mind, um…” he trails off, and Betty can only assume that there is a big fat check he’s waiting on. _ Birth control would be cheaper than this, _she thinks.

Alice smiles her own pleasing-adults-grin and turns to Betty with a rehearsed degree of emotion in her eyes. “Oh, right, of course. Well, sweetheart, this is it for now. Of course, if you need me to drive up any weekend and take you home or—”

Gritting her teeth to prevent from laughing in her mother’s face, Betty manages, “I’ll call you. Bye, Mom.” They both endure the awkward hug, Betty fidgeting and ready to drop the moping facade for her mother. 

“Be safe, Elizabeth.” Again, Betty bites back a comment about better methods than prep school to prevent pregnancy. 

Ethel waits in the lobby of the principal’s office, the very picture of a student ambassador. Not that Betty can judge—at Riverdale High, she was Ethel. The tour guide. The welcoming smile. The portrait of best-foot-forwardness. It’s relieving to be on the other side of the equation for once. Betty briefly wonders how many of her Riverdale classmates found her as unnervingly overeager as she now finds Ethel.

Stonewall’s campus is a one long set of connected buildings, which Ethel informs is great for the deep snows of upstate New York winter. The north wing of the school is all of the upper school classrooms, the South wing houses the lower school. The girls dorms and boys dorms bookend the academic buildings, and Betty notes that the separation of the living quarters cannot have passed Alice’s notice.

“I laminated a map for you because I know my first few days I got completely lost!” Ethel chimes as they dip in and out of the student lounge, the dining hall, the library (where Betty plans to spend many hours). “And on the back is the daily schedule—start and end times for meals are strict and all weekday meals are communal.” Betty tunes out the subsequent monologue on Stonewall’s food sourcing and composting program. 

“I should also mention, and I mean, I know it’s totally lame, but the quiet hours are very strictly enforced between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM. Thankfully, the dorms have nice common areas for study once the library closes.” Ethel emphasizes _totally lame_ in such a way that Betty can tell Ethel does not actually have any cause to find these rules restrictive. 

As if sensing the question Betty doesn’t quite dare to ask, Ethel presses, “The security at Stonewall is a priority. We even have student security ambassadors! It’s really more of a communal code than just the staff trying to keep everyone in line.” 

Somehow, Betty doubts this, familiar with boasting of Riverdale High’s RIVER code of conduct: Respect, Integrity, Valor, Empathy, Responsibility. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

“Well, here we are, these are the dorms! I informed Veronica that she should meet us…” The shift in Ethel’s tone when she says Veronica’s name conforms Betty’s suspicions—her tour guide and her new roommate are not of the same ilk. Ethel leads her into an empty common room and indicates the living quarters of the dorm mother. 

“The first floor is the lower school girls, second floor is freshmen and sophomores, then upperclassmen.When Veronica comes down she’ll show you to your room and help you get settled before dinner. I’m sure she’ll be plenty welcoming and make sure you are oriented, but I left my phone number on a post-it in your folder. You can text me if you have any questions, or if you need a study buddy! I’m sure you’ll have a lot of catching up to do.” 

Betty smiles without teeth. “Thanks Ethel, for everything.”

Ethel returns her smile briefly before her eyes flash over Betty’s shoulder. The girl descending the staircase is small, but her aura fills the room. She’s wearing what passes for the Stonewall uniform, though the blazer is exceptionally tailored, and her navy pleated skirt likely doesn’t pass the fingertip test. Her knee high socks in heels are a look that even a reinvented Betty wouldn’t have a prayer of pulling off.

“Ah, you must be the roommate.”

Veronica Lodge’s voice drips with rich-girl self importance that Betty finds herself more charmed than annoyed by, perhaps because of the sparkle in her eye as she takes Betty in, almost like she’s being inventoried. The slow, cheshire cat smile creeping across Veronica’s face indicates that Betty passes muster at first glance. Feeling the need to prove that this doesn’t please her, Betty tries to return the toe to crown assessment. 

“And you must be Veronica.” 

The smile deepens, and Betty clenches her jaw with pleasure. “Thank you, Ethel,” Veronica dismisses, somehow managing to convey the sentiment of _ that will be all. _Betty feels her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. Ethel slinks away obediently. 

“Hello, Betty. I have to say, you’re not what I expected from a public school girl.” Veronica begins walking up the stairs again, requiring Betty to follow gracelessly at double her roommate’s pace. She also doesn’t know what to say to this—it’s neither obviously a compliment nor a slight. Her pink keds glare up at her, obviously branding her.

She hazards a guess at the type to transfer in. “What, someone who needs to be... reformed?” 

Veronica stops at the top of the second flight and gestures to the left. “Maybe. Though it’s always the ones you’d least expect.”

Betty decides that this is as good as any mystery to leave Veronica with: let her wonder about who you’ve been while you show her who you will be. Looking down at her feet, she realizes Veronica may have read her shoes the same as Alice—defiance. Only unlike her mother, Veronica likes it. 

Her things have been brought up from the entrance. Betty has half a mind to joke about where the house elves are when she walks into their dorm room and is met immediately with a large canvas of a naked woman.

Not that Betty can’t appreciate art or nudity, per say, but within seconds she realizes that the naked woman in question is, well, _ Veronica. _“Oh,” she interjects casually, catching Betty’s gaze. “My girlfriend, Cheryl, is an artist. I posed for her portraiture project last year.”

Betty, willing herself not to blush, turns to the first of her boxes and begins to unpack. “She’s um, talented.” This seems like the most neutral-positive comment possible. 

“I hope that’s not going to be an issue.” Veronica’s tone is defensive, and Betty catches onto the fact that she means her _ girlfriend, _and not the portrait. 

“Oh, no of course not. My best friend back home is gay. I mean… sorry, that’s such a line isn’t it?”

But Veronica laughs and comes to help Betty unpack her box of books. “No, you pass. Honestly, I was nervous about this. I’ve never had a roommate before. Perks of having legacy parents who donate a cool half-mill every year. But if your taste in novels is any indicator,” she holds up Betty’s heavily annotated copy of _ The Bluest Eye, _“I think this might work out.”

Veronica introduces Betty to Cheryl outside their first class—English literature—the next morning. Cheryl looks like she stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad, waving a sheet of very long red hair and bright lipstick in a sea of emerald and navy plaid.

“Living dangerously, my love,” Veronica cooes. “Didn’t Ethel write you up for that’s lipstick last week?”

“Let’s just say I was hoping you’d lick it off before she gets a chance,” Cheryl quips, and Betty tries not to outwardly wince at the visual. _ I’m right here, _she wants to say, but she has the feeling that Cheryl relishes in others’ discomfort. Instead of indulging her with a reaction, Betty flips her agenda over and pretends to study her schedule closely. 

Betty’s apathy draws Cheryl’s attention like a magnet. “You, Betty, are the one asking to get in trouble with those bubblegum pink statement pieces. Somehow you manage to be both bold _and_ bland, little miss Riverdale.”

Already realizing that Cheryl is the kind of person who comes unfiltered, Betty grits her teeth. Given the unintelligent barbs lobbed at her for her entire schooling, Betty has developed a thick skin.

Veronica adds, “She’s an enigma,” sounding proud, and perhaps even possessive. Cheryl and Veronica share a charged look, but Betty has no idea how to read it.

She’s never really had female friends—Archie and Kevin were her only close friends in Riverdale. She and Polly hadn’t been close since they hit puberty. She’s deficient in the unspoken language of girls—a lack she’s often mourned. Betty suspects that even if this weren’t the case, neither Veronica or Cheryl are particularly transparent people. Their conversations seemed to only be half voiced, assisted with eyebrows and shrugs, pursed lips and smirks. 

As they linger outside, Betty notes that all of the students who pass into the classroom stare blatantly at her, but once they notice Veronica and Cheryl, they look away. Betty only catalogs a few of them: Ethel, a short and skinny boy with messy hair and glasses like a frail Harry Potter, a girl even more petite than Veronica with pink streaks in her long hair. 

Despite the awkward task of introducing herself to her teacher, Betty realizes it may be better than third-wheeling a Veronica and Cheryl gush at each other with an abundance of French pet names. Ms. Haggly gets her settled with _ Much Ado About Nothing _ and a brief overview of their reading and discussion schedule. When the bell rings, Veronica and Cheryl finally walk in, separating to what Betty assumes must be assigned seats. 

Haggly seats her next to Veronica, near the back left corner, even though there is another open desk closer to the front, kitty corner to hers. 

The reason for the open desk becomes apparent a minute later when the door swings open to a tall, gangly boy. Betty ignores the rush of blood to her face, the temptation to hold her breath at his beautiful, though unsmiling face. He meets her gaze across the room and her ability to breathe seems to cease completely.

_ Don’t be dramatic. For god’s sake Betty, it’s just a boy. You’ve seen one before. _She's just never actually lost oxygen over one before.

“Lovely of you to join us, Mr. Jones. Hat _ off. _I’m calling your father in next time you’re late to my class.” His eyes flick back to Ms. Haggly, hardening with exasperation. Tugging off the gray knit hat he wears, he combs his fingers through a damp mop of jet black hair and moves to his seat. Cheryl fixes him with a particularly vicious glare.

“As I was about to say, I would like you all to welcome Elizabeth Cooper, our newest Stonewall scholar. I’m sure you will all invite Elizabeth into the fold of our school, especially as she gets caught up with the course material.”

Betty clears her throat. “Actually, I go by Betty.”

The boy—Jones—turns to look at her again. He’s much closer now; she can see that his eyes are green-blue and there’s a very slight, appraising curl of his lips. It’s probably just because she’s the new girl, Betty reasons, but his stare lingers long enough for her face to flush. 

Their teacher plows on, turning to what she promises will be only a brief lecture on Shakespeare authorship debates. He still hasn’t turned around. “Nice shoes,” he murmurs. 

Betty thinks her face must be, at this point, matching the pink on her sneakers. She gulps, her throat too dry to respond. Trying to smile in response, she bares her teeth in more of a grimace. Jones turns around.

Out of the spotlight of his gaze, Betty notes he’s not the only one staring. A tall, dark haired guy behind Cheryl squints to appraise her from across the room. A few others gape openly, taking inventory much like Veronica had, trying to place her, type her. The thought of asking any of them for help catching up on the first half of the term makes her palms start to sweat. 

Five minutes into the lecture that Betty has been taking overly detailed notes on, Jones crinkles open a bag of hot Cheetos. No one reacts to this, despite the fact that Stonewall doesn’t seem like a school that allows eating during class. Maybe he’s above it all—though the apparent reigning queen of superiority is flashing dirty looks at him from across the room with every crunch of puffed cheese. Maybe he’s got blood sugar regulation issues and is allowed snacks. 

The bag is finished before Betty realizes she’s stopped writing and spent the last however many minutes gaping at the Jones kid. _ Excellent academic impression you’re making, Betty. _

But then he’s left with a thumb and forefinger coated in fluorescent red spicy dust and as soon as he flexes his (very) long fingers and brings them to his mouth, Betty thinks she may be having an aneurysm. Who the hell allowed this guy into her class with a face and hands like that? And how is she the only person in the room losing her mind over it?

She’s mid-thought about what his tongue might taste like after the Cheetos, what it might _ feel _like, particularly on her collarbone—when his head swivels to catch her drooling gaze. Jones seems to do a double take, surprised to find her looking. He presses his lips together to fight a smile.

Whether it’s mocking or bashful, Betty has no idea. She turns scarlet all the same. 

Because she’s an investigator by nature, Betty learns a lot about Cheeto boy over the course of the first day, even though they don’t share any more classes.

Once the brain fog of stare-and-resist clears after English, she makes the ‘Jones’ connection to “Forsythe Jones,” editor of the newspaper and asks Ethel about it in pre-calculus. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s him. But he goes by Jughead.”

Betty blinks, dumbstruck that such a beautiful person would have such a weird name (not that Forsythe is any less strange). “By choice?”

Ethel blushes, and Betty find herself both relieved and possessive that someone else has demonstrated a sensible reaction to this boy.

“Jughead isn’t exactly… like everybody else.”

Unsure whether to vomit at Ethel’s coy tone or feel relieved that maybe he’s not the rich asshole she had been mentally projecting based on his christened name, Betty simply returns to puzzling over trig functions. And puzzling over how she can get on the school paper as soon as possible. 

Veronica mentions the student security ambassadors Monday evening when quiet hours hit. “I mean, I know it’s only your second night, but if you ever need to get out after hours, it’s not that hard. I mean, there’s Jones and company, the student security team, but they’re kind of a joke. Most of them don’t _ want _ to be snitches, they’re just scholarship kids who need the extra campus job hours or whatever.”

Betty tries extra hard, perched on her new dorm bed sheets, to sound oblivious. “Who are ‘Jones and company’?” 

Veronica rolls her eyes, annoyed by the mere thought of them. “That kid who was late to English? His dad is the head of campus security, who, I should say, you do _not _actually want to be caught by. He expelled a _star_ _football player,_ last year.” Veronica hesitates, but Betty senses that something good is forthcoming. “I guess I feel for him. Jughead. It’s total social suicide and he can’t even help it, right? I mean, it doesn’t help that he’s a pretentious walking thesaurus in class and wants people to call him some dumbass name, but whatever.”

Betty doesn’t respond with anything but a mute nod, cataloging the information but unsure what to do with it from here. It makes sense that Cheryl might glare at him across the room—she doesn’t seem the type to abide by snitching, and if Veronica was casually classist, Cheryl seemed even more strict about stratifying her social circle. To change the subject, she asks to borrow Veronica’s history notes.

A few hours later, under the cover of total darkness, Veronica leaves their room, diverting Betty’s attention from Jughead Jones for the first time all day.

In fact, Veronica’s evening exploits become her primary distraction over the first exhausting week of playing academic catch-up. Riverdale High had hardly begun real instruction before Betty transferred, and Stonewall has firmly outpaced Riverdale by a full quarter at this point. There are binders of notes to study and hours of reading to pour over every evening after dinner. Then, around midnight, once Betty’s finally passed out, Veronica slips away. Some nights Betty wakes to the exit, others to the re-entry. 

Despite Haggly’s announcement to welcome Betty into the fold, most students employ a stare-but-avoid tactic when she’s sitting at the communal study tables in the library. On Tuesday, a handful of over-friendly jocks introduce themselves in the student lounge while she memorizes the unit circle for an impending pre-calc midterm and waits for Veronica to finish her double Chemistry block. They’re exactly the demographic of overly-suave assholes she’d projected when she heard the name _ Forsythe Jones. _

Veronica and Cheryl are exceptions of course, but when Jughead smiles at her in lit on Wednesday, she can’t help but wonder if her companions might be hindering his initiative to actually strike up a conversation. She spends the period fantasizing about working late nights in the newspaper office, their fingers grazing one another’s by accident over final edits, those long fingers edging their way under the hem of her skirt and—then Haggly calls on Betty to read for the messenger in act one scene one. 

On Thursday, Betty is approached by a girl named Ginger. “I know your email is down, but Principal Honey told me you might want to try out for field hockey!” Though decidedly uninterested, Betty accepts Ginger’s invitation to meet a few of the girls on the team in Ginger’s room that evening. There, Betty briefly meets Toni, the only girl who sits at Jones and Company’s meal table. Every girl in Ginger’s room looks slightly afraid when Toni brusquely announces that Betty rooms with Veronica Lodge.

Friday morning, exhausted from studying and picking apart the strange, untouchable social status she seems to be earning, Betty decides she needs to crack Veronica’s code. The nightly escapades _ must _ be more than seeing Cheryl, who lives down the hall. Besides, Veronica has been waking up in their room every day this week, and based on the enthusiasm of her morning greeting to Cheryl outside English, it doesn’t seem like they’ve just spent the whole night together.

Jughead is late again to English on Friday, but hatless, and his hair swings across his forehead just so; Betty gulps and then prays Veronica hasn’t noticed. The navy uniform sweater fits him ungodly well. Its tight knit is a welcome change from the looser-fitting polos that she now knows were hiding even more of his good looks. He’s not athletic-buff like his larger friend, who Jughead calls ‘Sweets’ but their teachers call ‘Mantle’ (and Betty is halfway convinced he’s Ricky Mantle’s love child), but neither is Jughead scrawny like Dilton. Betty has spent a lot more class minutes focused on how perfectly huggable he looks, or imagining how it might feel to rest her head on his chest, than on keeping detailed character notes to prevent from mixing up Don John and Don Pedro. 

They’ve spoken once or twice, but always as a part of class discussion. He does smile at her a lot, to which Betty usually just goes into an immediate cold sweat of panic. Stonewall Betty wants to be forward, to walk with him after class, to smile back at the _ very least _ but she can’t seem to jump the first hurdle. His friends bombard them as soon as they make it into the hallway, so she chickens out and spends half of math class composing an email that’s neither blasé nor overeager about meeting to discuss the school paper. She decides on _ I’ll catch you after class _—and maybe by the time she does, she’ll be able to act as calm and collected as she makes herself out to be. 

That night, Betty drinks a cup of coffee at dinner to prepare for her stakeout. She’s settled into being a quiet spectator of Veronica and Cheryl’s exchanges which seem, most of the time, to be partially in code. Usually Cheryl will greet her with a falsely sweet comment about her lipstick color, heart shaped post earrings, or color-coded scrunchie (“Do you have one for _ every _ day of the week?"). Then Veronica will soften the blow with an actual compliment, or a question about her life in Riverdale (“Did you have a boyfriend? Was cheerleading as intense as in the movies? Were you the smartest in your grade? Must be brilliant if they let you in so late in the term.”)

Sometimes, after a heated nonverbal discussion, Cheryl and Veronica will break completely and ask Betty very direct questions about social and philosophical concepts that suit their interests: how necessary men are to the functioning of the human race, or what might matriarchy look like? 

It’s far preferable meal time conversation than Alice drilling her with questions or Kevin’s thirst monologues, reminding Betty that once the haze of catching up with coursework passes, and once she has a chance to really dig into her passion for journalism, Stonewall will be everything she’s ever hoped for. 

At bedtime, Betty forgoes the Friday night movie party hosted by Ethel in the girls dorm lounge and follows Veronica back to their room. Dressing in leggings and a hoodie, Betty slips under the covers and reads from _ A Different Mirror _for American History for an hour before Veronica feigns ready for bed.

Betty wakes at a lot of false alarms—a limb bumping against Veronica’s headboard, the shuffle of the duvet. Finally, nearing midnight, Veronica slinks almost noiselessly across the room. She’s never had to practice before, not having a roommate, and Betty is impressed by her stealth. Once Veronica latches the door, Betty springs up. She can’t wait too long, or else Veronica will be hard to tail, but Betty has to pause for long enough to not be seen. 

Through the peephole, Betty catches Veronica slinking down the stairs. Closing the door softly behind her, Betty follows. The lounge is emptied by now, the empty bowls of popcorn lingering. She waits at the base of the stairs for Veronica to close the dorm door (which locks from the outside, requiring one to call the dorm mother or campus security if locked out). Betty doesn’t know how Veronica is getting back in, but Betty has slipped five extra bobby pins into her ponytail for this purpose. 

Betty almost loses her outside the dorm. The hallways are long and dark, and there are three possible directions. The whip of Veronica’s hair around the right corner could have been a hallucination, but Betty pursues it with success. She’s headed outside. Betty thanks herself for wearing the River Vixens sweatshirt she stole from Polly after she left for college—not that Betty didn’t have her own, but Polly’s was more comfortably worn. She wonders idly if Polly might be missing it now that she’s home in Riverdale. 

The alarm doesn’t sound when Veronica opens the door, so Betty hopes for the best. The lawn outside is even darker, but Veronica is visible, breaking into a full sprint for the forest. _ What the ever-living—_

Even with her curiosity piqued, Betty knows she’s not going into that dark forest tonight without preparation or any kind of map or flashlight. 

But now the outside door is shut and locked. And outside doors do not have pickable locks. _ Damn it. _This is it. She’ll have to ring into the building and get written up by Mr. Jones and her mom will be angry. Alice will think she’s sticking a toe out of line and god knows what body part comes next and maybe it’s best if she pulls Betty back home again and— 

Then she spots it. An open first floor window. A long shot, maybe, but if her arms haven’t deteriorated too much from Vixens lifts or track and field high jump… 

After all, there’s nothing Betty Cooper won’t try. 

* * *

It takes everything in Jughead’s power to stop staring at the new girl; _ Betty_, as she corrected Haggly before Jughead noticed her shoes and unintentionally made her go as pink as the canvas on her feet. He can more than appreciate the small act of rebellion, having seen the more blatant attempts be slapped down immediately by various teachers and administration. Veronica Lodge’s stilettos, for one—nobody much felt like fighting with a trustee’s daughter over a uniform infraction, so the shoes only downgraded slightly to three-inch heels—and then Sweet Pea’s ill-advised summer vacation neck tattoo that requires him to button his shirts all the way up. Jughead himself wears his worn-out childhood hat as often as he can get away with it and most teachers, Haggly notwithstanding, let it slide. 

A singular perk to bearing the same name as the school’s head of security. 

Most teachers prefer to hold favor with Forsythe Pendleton Jones, Jr., for something less frivolous than inappropriate uniform adornment, like students getting in fights in the halls or suspicions of exams being stolen from filing cabinets. He’s still eyeballed each time he walks into English class, though, and Jughead feels more vulnerable than usual without the comfort of the soft knit over his ears on the day that Betty Cooper joins their class. 

He doesn’t _ not _ want to stare at Betty. He admires the careful choice of shoes that aren’t strictly out of code, but aren’t _ in code, _ and he more than admires the delicate curl of her ponytail, the shine of her lip balm, and the dusting of pink that hits her cheekbones when he holds her gaze for an extra few moments. Jughead would certainly not mind welcoming _ Elizabeth _ into the fold of Stonewall—share the past six weeks of his messy yet extensive class notes; tell her which foods to avoid in the cafeteria (everything not fried to a crisp, in his opinion); show her the abandoned corners and hallways the student security team specifically avoids so as not to disturb clandestine hookups; _ meet her _in one of the aforementioned abandoned corners to curl her ponytail around his fingers and find out what her faint floral perfume tastes like by dragging his tongue down her neck. 

_ God. _ Sweet Pea and his perpetual horniness might be getting to him, so Jughead splits his focus between his late-morning snack and Haggly’s lecture on Shakespeare’s authorship and historical context. As the conversation turns toward the text itself—_lucky, _Jughead thinks, that Betty doesn’t have to jump into the middle of a unit—the back of his neck prickles uncomfortably. 

He’s not unaccustomed to stares from his classmates; occupational hazard of being the son of the man who can easily get every single one of his classmates thrown into detention, or out of school altogether. It’s for this reason that Jughead doesn’t wish to spend too much time looking at Betty Cooper, because he knows precisely how much it can fuck with your head to know that all your classmates are picking you apart with their eyes, to not have any idea what they’re thinking about you but to know it’s likely nothing positive. 

(If Veronica is her roommate, though, Betty may evade that fate. Being pulled under the fearsome wingspan of the Lodge-Blossom pairing will only serve to elevate Betty from ‘new girl’ status to ‘pet project not to be trifled with.’ Jughead isn’t sure which fate is worse, if he’s being honest.) 

A quick glance behind him tells Jughead that it _ is _Betty watching him again, and he falters while cleaning his left ring finger of all vestiges of spicy cheese dust. It’s not the stare of condescension that he receives from the majority of his classmates—nor the regular look of annoyance from his friends—but one of curiosity and something akin to studiousness, like he’s a riddle she’s trying to solve, and he doesn’t know what to do with this. Regardless, he doubles down, intent to get a better read on this girl, and relishes in the shade of scarlet that spreads from her cheeks down to the tips of her starched uniform collar when he catches her in a full stare. 

Suppressing a smile, Jughead returns to his snack and his orange-smeared notes. Suddenly the Beatrice and Benedick dynamic seems far more intriguing than before, he thinks. He doesn’t look back again before class is over, but the not-altogether-unpleasant prickling remains until the bell rings. 

At midday break, Jughead is already inhaling his second sandwich by the time his friends show up at his table in the cafeteria; he’s long since given up on their dawdling prior to meals, too impatient to forgo the opportunity of getting as much of the freshly made dining hall food as possible. 

Too many years of his childhood were spent with only the crusts of his little sister’s stale peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, plus the barely edible slop of free-and-reduced-lunch in the Toledo inner city school cafeteria. They grew up on food stamps and their mom’s miserable waitressing tips, Jughead always assuming Gladys was as crap a waitress as she was a mother. She’d get close to tears herself whenever Jellybean cried, snap at Jughead if he grew out of his sneakers too quickly, and frequently forgot to pay the electric bill. Every few months, Gram and Pop would show up and there’d be whispered arguments Jughead overheard from his couch bed, but there would also be diner dinners with extra fries and a shake for him to split with Jellybean, and Pop would take him to the Goodwill store if he’d outgrown something.

Jughead was in fourth grade and Jelly just barely in pre-school when Gram and Pop showed up to help their mom pack up the crappy trailer. Gram drove off to their house with his mother and baby sister, and Pop drove Jughead across state lines to be dropped off with a dad he only ever saw once a year.

At that point in time, Jughead had only known FP as a “good-for-nothing piece of shit” and the man who would buy him him Slurpees at the movies each Thanksgiving. Pop clapped FP on the shoulder before murmuring something in his ear and then teasingly pulled Jughead’s beanie over his whole head. Jughead, nine years old and confused as hell, swallowed a lump in his throat and accepted the goodbye hug. 

FP told him he could cry if he wanted to. 

After that, Jughead leaned into the consistency of life with his namesake. His dad had a landline and he was allowed to call long distance to say hi to Jellybean every other day. Their old apartment always smelled of burnt coffee and microwaved pizza, but Jughead had his own bed and a ride to school, albeit an early one when FP still worked construction. His new school had a real library he could check out _ The Hardy Boys _ and _ Ender’s Game _from and a teacher who made fractions seem a little less like gibberish. Old Mrs. Grundy next door would give him banana bread on the afternoons FP worked late and had an aging mutt named Hot Dog that Jughead took on walks. He didn’t look his gift horse in the mouth. 

It wasn’t a terrible life after all. And the gift horse looked all the more appealing when FP took the Stonewall security job, not only securing Jughead a spot in the school but also confirming that the two of them would have professionally cooked meals for the rest of their days. 

All these years later, though, Jughead still can’t shake his need to ensure every single meal. Especially not when a leisurely walk to the cafeteria meant extra time spent in line behind his obnoxious classmates and a mad dash to the liberal arts building to be on time for psychology, whose teacher is even less tolerant of him as a person than Haggly is of his hat. 

Also, he really loves the roast beef panini. 

Toni whacks him gently on the head as a hello, snatching the other half of his sandwich and trading it for her own grilled cheese. “They ran out of the roast beef,” she mumbles through a bite by way of explanation. 

“Asshole,” he tosses back.

She flips him the bird and carries on. “How’d you end up late to lit, Jug? We all left the cafeteria at the same time this morning and I thought Haggly was going to take your head off along with your hat.” 

Fangs swings into the bench next to both of them and answers for him, “We got cornered by freakin’ Mason who seemed hellbent on convincing us that _ we _owe him fifty bucks for the vodka we made him pour out when we were on rounds this weekend.” 

Toni snorts, Jughead rolling his eyes before finishing the story. “So I politely reminded him that I could and _ should _have called my dad to write him up and get him tossed off football, and it was his own goddamn fault for walking around campus with two open containers of rail liquor, but that Fangs and I decided to be nice and he should shove his fifty dollar request up the ass.” 

Moose Mason had then threatened to put his foot up Jughead and Fangs’ respective asses, but the warning bell rang and they all scattered. Jughead hasn’t had a chance to inspect his uniform yet, but he’s fairly confident there’s a tear in his shirt collar from where Moose grabbed at him. Nearly six years of school together and some of these assholes still treat him like dirt on the bottom of their pristine $400 shoes. 

_ Dicks, _he thinks bitterly. It used to roll off his back, but once the Stonewall administration set up the work study program for scholarship students and created what is not-so-affectionately named the ‘snitch squad’ of student security ambassadors, comments got a little more vicious and a lot more under his skin. 

Toni, Fangs, Sweets, and the handful of other kids take it in stride because they at least elected to be ridiculed in the name of a better paycheck than swiping student IDs for cafeteria or library entry, or reshelving books in the library. They also each have a more intimidating facade than Jughead could ever pull off after a lifetime of wearing his security blanket on his head and willingly going by a nickname more ridiculous than his legal name. But he doesn’t begrudge FP his job choice, especially not when it guarantees him acceptance to at least one state college and the chance at a better future than his absentee mother could have pulled off. 

The student security gig itself is easy—locking up the buildings during the week and then a couple rounds of campus on weekend nights to make sure no one was blind drunk in the middle of the football field, like Moose and his buddies had been on Saturday—but it does come with a target on his back. 

Jughead would much prefer keeping his head down, studying, and getting the hell out of dodge, even if it meant no friends, but there’s only so much he’s willing to ask of FP after being handed this spot at Stonewall. He’d wanted a computer from this decade and enough cash to buy a bus ticket to his grandparents’ during the holidays, so he sucked it up and laid in the bed he made for himself. 

The other main benefit was a tight knit group of friends who know the reality of life beyond prep school, which Jughead is grateful for. Even if it means he’ll never remotely be in the league of the new ponytailed blonde with the pink shoes. 

The object of his thoughts passes their table, as if summoned to confirm this self-deprecating truth. She’s guided by Veronica and Cheryl to a table full of prep school stereotypes, making Jughead sigh internally. He pretends to not notice all three of his friends watching his eyeline and smirking at each other. 

“How about that new girl, eh?” Sweet Pea grins with a snap of his gum, nudging Jughead on the shoulder as they head down from the boys’ dormitory to the tiny security office on the far end of campus. “I’ve got US History with her and Queen Lodge too, who seems to have her claws in already, but I saw her looking at you in lit class. Seemed pretty distracted by you and your nasty Cheeto fingers, probably wondering what else your tongue can do.” 

Much as he hates to admit it, Jughead pleased to know that Betty’s noticing of _ him _was not just a figment of his imagination. It doesn’t stop him from jabbing an elbow in Sweet Pea’s direction, landing just below his friend’s ribcage and causing a hiccup in his laughter. “You sure it was her thinking about my tongue during class, Sweets?” He dodges a half-hearted right hook to the shoulder and takes off running, and the pair end up wrestling their way through the door. They’re stopped only when they run into the solid wall of FP Jones, eyebrows raised and a look of mild amusement dancing across his face. 

“You two quite finished or do I need to write you up?” 

Sweet Pea straightens up. “Sorry, Mr. Jones.” 

Jughead rolls his eyes at Sweet Pea’s performance; they all know his dad has a soft spot for the student security team, what with the scholarship students so willing to be subject to the side-eye and ridicule of their classmates for the campus job with the best hourly rate. Sweet Pea likely could have landed a punch right into FP’s stomach and still be his favorite. 

(He may have a great friend in Sweet Pea, but Jughead can’t help but feel jilted whenever he sees him interact with FP. His dad, Mr. Varsity Big Man on Campus himself, loves to provide weight lifting and jump shot tips to Stonewall’s highest scoring forward on the basketball team. More than he loves pretending to understand Jughead’s passion for running the school paper.) 

Feeling two pairs of eyes fixed on him, Jughead realizes both Sweet Pea and his dad are waiting for the follow-up apology. Instead, he grinds his teeth and changes the subject. “Anything specific tonight, or just the usual?” 

“The standard, check that all the buildings are clear of students and lock up, same for all the hallway connectors. Double check all the dorm exits, too.” FP shifts, looking like he isn’t sure if he wants to share the next piece of information. “I think people have been sneaking into the girls’ dorms, but I can’t be sure if it’s someone who’s snuck out coming back in, or one of you horny nitwits breaking in to see a girlfriend.”

“No horny nitwits allowed, roger that.” Jughead mocks a salute and then grabs a walkie-talkie set and two security jackets from the desk. 

FP just shakes his head with a sigh and stomps back toward his office, leaving Jughead and Sweet Pea in the doorway. Jughead throws a glance at his friend, who is looking determinedly at the ceiling. “You’re not breaking into the dorm to smoke in Toni’s room, are you?” 

Toni, the lucky asshole, wound up in one of the only singles in the girls’ dorm this year and thus has been their groups’ go-to for hangouts—Jughead has Fangs as a roommate again, but Fangs is a notorious slob, and Sweet Pea is with a teammate who is a bit of a dick about anybody _ not _on a sports team. She also happens to have a faulty smoke detector that nearly every campus stoner and casual smoker has taken advantage of in the first few weeks of the term. 

“It was _ once,” _ Sweet Pea says, hands up in defense. “The night before the physics exam last week and it was, like, less than an hour after curfew. And I’m not a big enough idiot to leave any evidence for your dad to catch.” 

Jughead shrugs. “On your head be it, man.” 

They divide and conquer for rounds, and Jughead offers to cover most of the central academic buildings under the pretense of needing something from the _Emerald_’s office, but secretly hoping he may run into Betty. English Lit seems to be their only shared class and he has lamented her absence otherwise. He would never want to be presumptuous—or a dick, for that matter—but a part of him worries that too much time spent at the outset with Veronica Lodge and Cheryl Blossom might catapult Betty from ‘out of his league’ to ‘hovering in the exosphere of his social orbit.’ From only a few hours of class together, he gets the impression that she isn’t one to be taken in by glamor, but years of shared schooling with the Lodges and Blossoms of the world have taught Jughead that no one is completely immune to their shine. 

Principal Honey _ had _ sent an email introduction, telling Jughead that _ Elizabeth’s Stonewall email is not yet up and running, but please reply to her at this address with details regarding the student newspaper at your earliest convenience_, and he’d scoffed that for all the money this school wrenches out of sufficiently-lined pockets, IT logistics bend to no man’s will. 

(On experience alone, Jughead assumes Betty is not a scholarship student. For one, FP would have already mentioned the potential for another student team member. For another, the Stonewall application process is so rigorous and lengthy that the appearance of a brand new student in the middle of term can mean only one thing—a freshly signed check.) 

(He’s not sure quite what it is, but unlike his stance towards the majority of his classmates, Jughead does not hold this against Betty.) 

They’ll have class together twice more this week and Jughead wonders if he can get away with introducing himself as the editor without, one, sounding like a pompous asshole, or two, like he’s stalking her, since she likely still won’t have received the email. He’s weighing the pros and cons when he rejoins Sweet Pea back at the office, and then begins weighing the pros and cons of asking his friend for advice. 

Given Sweet Pea’s previous crass comments without even knowing Jughead’s interest, he decides against it. Maybe Fangs would be a better choice, but Fangs will share even sworn secrets with Toni—not that he can begrudge their close bond as the only two out bi kids at school, but it’s particularly annoying when Toni magically knows things she shouldn’t. The absolute last thing Jughead wants is Toni trying to get involved because subtlety is _ not _ her forte. And anything mildly obvious by way of schemes in the girls’ dorm will alert Cheryl Blossom, which means Veronica will know and then share with her brand new roommate. In the blink of an eye, a seemingly innocent question to his roommate about a girl he _ might _be interested in would turn Jughead’s world upside down. 

An undoubted tick in the _ con _column of being at Stonewall is that the very small student body has all been in classes together since the sixth grade and as such, privacy is not an allowed luxury, let alone secrecy. 

He’s better off keeping his mouth shut and feeling things out for himself. 

It’s probably nothing, either way. He’s sure the only reason Betty was watching him in class is because he was being obnoxious with his snacking. He’ll admit that he gets satisfaction from annoying those around him, particularly when he can see Cheryl Blossom wince from the corner of his eye every time a chip bag crinkles. Betty seems observant, she was likely trying to get a bead on all her new classmates. 

Maybe he’ll make an extra effort to get to class early, see if he can catch her without Veronica glued to her hip, and casually mention that the principal told him about her interest in the paper. Ask for writing samples, offer to show her the journalism room, try not to give away that he’s had filthy thoughts about what they could do in the privacy of the journalism office that nobody pays attention to. 

Midterms are fast-approaching, though, and the threat of a surprise precalc ‘quiz’ means that Jughead spends most of the week in the library. He rides the high of Betty’s smiles at him in class through the week and the disastrous math quiz until he wakes up on Friday morning to the sound of the door slamming. Fangs is on his way out, which means Jughead slept through his alarm and he definitely won’t be early to English Lit if he wants to grab breakfast. And he absolutely does; if he even attempts to talk to Betty before coffee and a bagel, he’ll end up with both feet in his mouth and a snowball’s chance in hell at making a halfway decent impression. 

Throwing on the cleanest pieces of uniform he can find from the pile in his desk chair and shaking his head clear of the very nice dream he’d been having before Fangs jolted him awake—featuring Betty and certain parts of _ her _uniform, damn those skirts—Jughead is halfway to the English building from the cafeteria before he realizes that his beanie is still back in his pile of clothes. Self-conscious without the article of clothing he’s fidgeted with for most of his life, he slides into his desk chair without making a show of things. At least Haggly can’t call him out for it this time.

As he’s swallowing the last bites of his everything bagel and digging for a pen, he feels something poke him in the back. Toni sits diagonally behind him, two desks down from Betty, and is brandishing her pencil at him like a weapon. 

“You look like a mop, Jones. I’m coming after you with my scissors sooner or later.” 

He huffs, tugging at the offending lock of hair in his eyeline, and straightens in his seat. He still can’t find a pen and Haggly says something that pings around his brain, setting a lightbulb off for their future essay assignment, and he swears under his breath. Another poke at his back, this time from Betty’s side. 

With her own pen neatly tucked behind her ear in a fashion that cannot be named anything other than _ absolutely fucking adorable, _Betty is offering him another pen, hand outstretched. He blinks at it, then at her. 

_ Use your brain, _his mind screams at him, sounding uncannily like Toni. Betty falters and Jughead realizes that he’s staring more intensely than the occasion merits. “Thank you,” he whispers with a smile. He takes the pen, noticing the bright purple of her nail polish and the warmth of her fingertips when they brush against his. 

Her answering blush is enough to drive the essay inspiration clear from his head, but Jughead can’t be bothered to remember it. He’ll come up with another idea. Maybe he can suggest a study session to Betty once he mentions the paper, and then they can brainstorm together. That seems like a perfectly innocent way to extend their time spent together, and not at all the testosterone-fueled need for her to find him intelligent and at least mildly attractive. 

Again, he plays with the stubborn curl on his forehead, wishing for the worn hem of his hat instead, and pretends to not notice Betty looking at him. When Betty answers a question about proto-feminisim, he turns in his chair to offer a ‘nice job’ by way of a smile. He is rewarded with another faint blush and afterwards pretends not to notice both Toni _ and _Veronica boring holes into the back of his head; Toni with curiosity and Veronica likely with intent to murder. 

Toni and Sweets pounce on him the moment the bell rings, so Jughead is robbed of his chance to talk to Betty. 

He can’t be too mad, though, because once he’s settled into his lab station in physics, his phone dings with an email from one Cooper-comma-Elizabeth at Stonewall.edu: _ Thank you for the introduction, Principal Honey. Jughead, I’ll catch you after class to talk about the paper. _

The little exclamation point she adds after her closing ‘talk soon’ sets off what can only be described as goddamn _ butterflies _ in his stomach. Even after Fangs purposely launches one of their experiment’s coiled springs into his face, Jughead can’t stop smiling. 

That evening, Jughead has tucked himself in to a quiet night of kicking Fangs’s ass in Call of Duty and ignoring their physics lab writeup when his cell phone goes off. 

It’s his dad, which isn’t unusual but also isn’t a great sign for whatever information he’s about to receive. 

“Hey Dad, what’s up?” 

“Kurtz hasn’t shown up for his shift with Toni tonight and you’re the only one under hours for the week. I need you to take his place.” Jughead groans both at the request and at Fangs, who shoots Jughead’s player clean off a ledge. 

“Oh fuck _ off, _Fogarty.” His friend flips him off and Jughead whips a bunched-up Stonewall sweater at his head. Fangs retaliates with a kick to the shins and after a few moments of scuffling, FP’s voice shouts through the phone.

“_Boy, _come on, focus. Toni is on her way to your dorm with the gear and I’ve already clocked you in, so screw your head on and get going.” 

As soon as the phone call clicks off, there’s a rapping on the door and Jughead flops backward on his bed. “Yeah, it’s open, Topaz.” Toni swings the door open with a flourish, her hair looking even more alarmingly pink against the bright red of the security jacket. 

“Sucks to suck, Jones. Get off your ass and help me so we can get this shit over with sooner. I have a date with some jock-supplied weed and one of the cute seniors from the dance team which is far more important than your game and the love poems you’re composing for Lodge’s new pet.” 

This time, Jughead aims a stray piece of his uniform at Toni’s hair, knowing she gets tetchy about anything messing with her ‘look’ once she’s done up. Fangs chuckles at both of them and Toni shoots him a threatening glare. “If you don’t watch it, I’ll pretend there’s a party on the freshman floor and tell FP we need a third person tonight.” 

While Fangs mimes zipping his lips, Jughead shoves his feet into worn-out Converse knock-offs and takes the radio that Toni hands him. She rocks onto her tiptoes and pats him on the beanie, “If you’re really good I’ll let you do the sweep of the girls’ dorm alone and maybe you can see all your girlfriends at once.” Much as Jughead would love the chance to run into Betty during off hours, he also knows that Ethel Muggs hosts movie nights for the upper and lower school girls on Friday nights and he has no interest in awkwardly putting off her even-more-awkward advances.

“Hard pass,” he grumbles. “Split east and west sides and meet back at the dorms?” 

She throws him a hand signal in agreement and they part ways. The process of ducking in and out of buildings to check the locks is practically muscle memory, allowing Jughead the time to wonder more about Betty Cooper. He’s not exactly composing the poems Toni teased him about, but he has spent much of this week with his mind occupied by pleated skirts, blonde curls, and beautiful, witty women born under star-filled skies. Idly, he considers that he might not hate it if Haggly makes them act out scenes this time around. Playing the Benedick to Betty’s Beatrice is far more enticing a promise than the infamous incident when he’d been asked to read Romeo while Cheryl was already Juliet. Much to everybody’s surprise, _ Veronica _had leapt in with a comment about subverting the Shakespearean trope of men playing all the female characters and how they should consider having only the girls in the class read for a change. 

Jughead doubts that either of the terrifying Stonewall queens credit the beginning of their relationship to his deep discomfort at the prospect of reading Romeo. It’s an amusing anecdote nonetheless. Maybe he’ll tell Betty about it, it does humanize Veronica somewhat, and he’s curious to know how Betty feels toward her new roommate. Veronica, to her credit, seems to have taken the sudden appearance of her first-ever roommate in stride. 

He has a feeling that may just be the Betty Cooper effect. 

She remains on his mind throughout the rhythm of turning locks and checking handles. Toni has just radioed that a door is jammed somewhere in the arts building when Jughead nears the girls’ dormitory. His ears perk up at the sound of someone swearing. 

Jughead rounds the corner of the building cautiously, unsure what the muffled scrabbling noise is or what he’s about to walk into. He needn’t have worried because the sight that greets him is more amusing than worrisome; a pair of very toned legs clad in black leggings are flailing spectacularly to wedge through the open window that their owner’s torso has already cleared. They’re sporting a pair of familiar spotless pink shoes that Jughead knows from lit class.

He clears his throat. “Uh, Betty? You okay over there?” 

The legs stiffen and then an embarrassed voice responds. “I got locked out of the dorm.” 

.

.

.

_tbc_

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't go to grad school, folks. it severely cuts down on your fic time.

_ you smile at me like you’re dying to say  
_ _ that your heartbeat stops when I’m walking away—   
_ _ so don’t walk away  
_ \- You’re in Love, Betty Who

* * *

  
  


Betty is desperately seeking purchase on some appropriate leverage to heave the lower half of her body through the open window when she hears his voice, humiliating her with its familiarity. 

“Uh, Betty? You okay over there?”

Of all times to finally have her crush alone, it  _ has  _ to be when she’s clearly breaking curfew and it’s clearly his job to bust her. Still, she’s kind of proud that he can identify her by her ass. Or maybe it’s her shoes.

Betty decides to lead with the most innocent of possible responses. “I got locked out of the dorm.”

Jughead doesn’t respond, so she continues to hang there, half in and half out the window, in case he decides to order her down. Better Jones Jr. than Jones Sr., of course, but despite Operation: New School, New Betty, she fears the ramifications of either. It is  _ some  _ progress, she supposes, to be getting in trouble at all, even if she’s still pretty shit-scared of what will happen. There is some rustling before she feels a tap on her sneaker.

“Um, do you want up or down?” Jughead asks, and Betty feels grateful that he can’t see her face, which is surely magenta at this point.

“Up, I guess? I hate to waste this effort. Do you mind giving me a… boost?” 

The silence that follows is excruciating, but then Betty feels something firm and level beneath her foot—his shoulder perhaps. “Should I just—” Jughead stutters, and Betty feels a little victorious that his embarrassment might have something to do with her legs and ass, toned by years of cheer pyramids. 

“Just push up,” she instructs. She feels Jughead place a very carefully laid hand on her mid-thigh. The firm grip of  _ those _ hands, the hands she has spent the better part of English class fantasizing about, does not escape her notice as he lifts her the few more inches she needs to grasp the inner ledge of the windowsill and swing herself inside. 

“Just stay there, I’ll meet you on the inside,” he calls.

_ Shit. This is where I get written up and probably lose my shot with him.  _ Betty stands, brushing herself off and taking stock of the room she’s in, which looks like every other Stonewall classroom, but much smaller. In fact, it looks more like an office, with heavy desks and old-fashioned library lamps, archive files, and a typewriter. She recognizes the heavy duty copier and the stacks of back issue newsprint from her own Riverdale High safe haven; Jughead’s must be the _ Emerald Herald _ office, and Betty is definitely about to flunk her writing staff interview. 

Then again, she thinks, desperate times call for desperate measures. She doesn’t want to snitch on Veronica, but it’s also true that Betty was simply following her investigative itch, which seems like a worthwhile skill to flex in this context.

The office door lock turns and Jughead stalks in, moving first to his desk and flicking on the lamp. Betty stays rooted in place, feeling more than a little like she’s about to get interrogated. Jughead raises a radio and speaks into it. “West side is clear and secure. Do you need me to meet back at the office or can I go to bed?”

Betty likes the way he banters with his friends; she’s seen him and Toni bicker like this (but also found comfort in the knowledge that they weren’t dating). She’s never had that, exactly, except with Kevin. It seems nice, even if Jughead is rolling her eyes as Toni responds over the radio, “You have to clock out, dipshit.”

“Well could you do it for me?” He’s not even looking at Betty, and she doesn’t know what to make of this. If he’s clocking out, it doesn’t seem like he’s going to write her up. 

“Why, what’s so urgent?”

Jughead’s eyes flick over to Betty and her stomach flips with some combination of exhilaration and anxiety. “Uhh, I have some shit at the  _ Herald _ to clean up. There’s a prospective student tour tomorrow and I forgot that it’s a total mess.”

The office isn’t too bad—Betty thinks a newspaper office  _ should  _ look a little messy. It feels more authentic. But she’s also sure by the grimace on Jughead’s face that he’s bluffing. It’s hard to say why—would Toni care that he was writing her up? Or that he was letting her off the hook?

Does he—maybe—want to be alone with her, unobserved? Betty bites her cheek to quell the rapidly growing hope. 

“Ugh, fine, but don’t make this a habit, Jones.”

Jughead thanks her and turns the radio off. Betty’s impatience and curiosity bubble over. “So are you writing me up, or what?”

Jughead’s lips curl into a smirk, and he walks around the desk to prop himself against the front edge so that they’re standing eye to eye. “Well, I don’t particularly cherish my reputation as a narc, and I don’t think your night-time wall-scaling practice is particularly nefarious. I mean, Dr. Beaker has been complaining about stolen supplies, but his office is on the second floor and I doubt, no offense, that a brand new student could find it from the outside of the building.

“Plus, it was my fault for leaving the window open, which I don’t particularly want my dad to find out about either.” He shrugs, and Betty knows he’s trying to be cute with his whole letting-her-off-the-hook bit—she’s falling for it (falling hook, line, and sinker) but she also knows she’s not out of the woods yet.

“So you have no further questions?” she challenges, taking a step closer to him and propping herself against the opposite desk.

Jughead bites his cheek, but his smirk wins over. He’s so good-looking and Betty’s palms are sweating worse than during her River Vixens try-out. “I never said  _ that.  _ But you also don’t seem like the kind of person who gets yourself into a situation that you can’t get yourself out of, Betty Cooper.”

She feels her face heat when she says his name, or when he looks her dead in the eyes, or the fact that he’s not wrong about her ability to problem-solve under duress. “I was following a lead on my audition piece for the  _ Herald _ .”

Jughead’s eyebrows shoot up. “Color me intrigued. I don’t have many staff writers so readily throwing themselves into the field.” He turns to open a desk drawer and pulls out a box of Cheez-its.  _ This boy and his inexplicable unlimited snacks. _

Betty squares her shoulders. “Every night, Veronica Lodge sneaks out of her room, and I have confirmed that she’s not just doing it to see Cheryl.”

Jughead nods, not disinterestedly. “I’m not sure an exposé on Veronica is a great idea if you’re trying to integrate yourself into the Stonewall fold.”

“I don’t want to write about Veronica, exactly. I’m more interested in what she’s doing, what secrets might be lurking in the shadows of Stonewall. She’s cryptic, sometimes. She’s a legacy student from an old money family. I just thought there might be something there. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe she and Cheryl are just hooking up in the more secluded forests on the grounds. But my intuition tells me that Veronica wouldn’t try to hide something like that.” Without realizing it, Betty has started pacing.

Jughead stuffs a handful of crackers in his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “Well,” he starts, brushing the crumbs from his fingers. Betty doesn’t think that it’s fair that he looks hot even while he’s eating. “That’s hardly a pitch, but like I said, the only remotely interesting thing to happen so far this year is all the missing chemistry supplies, which I’m about eighty percent sure is just Dr. Beaker not being able to label and organize stuff.” 

She knows it’s a garbage pitch, but it’s all she’s got so far, and Betty trusts her hunches. “Obviously if there’s nothing there, I’ll cover whatever you need, but… I have a knack for sniffing out the nefarious.” She doesn’t mention the fact that she was the one who broke the story of the pedophilic music teacher at her old high school, or exposed a gay conversion therapy center just outside of town, though both those stories  _ are  _ in ther application file. Betty kind of hopes he’s already read them—but she’d settle for waiting for him to bring them up later. If he’s—perhaps—desperate for another reason to start a conversation with her. 

Jughead frowns—though it’s not so much a frown as a poorly stifled smile. “If tonight is any indicator, I’m both disturbed and impressed with how far you’ll go to get a story.”

Though she’s had seventeen years of evidence to the contrary, Betty clenches her jaw as if sheer force of will could stop her cheeks from turning pink when he says this.  _ I have other talents, too,  _ is what pops into her mind. Of course, to say so would be embarrassing and probably untrue. At least, she doesn’t really have enough evidence in the getting-it-on department to confirm it. 

So instead she goes with, “I’m dedicated to the craft, Jones.” Betty doesn’t  _ plan  _ for how her voice dips, smooth and sultry, on his last name. Her ears burn. 

If he notices, Betty can’t tell. She’s too focused on her own physical evidence of humiliation. He responds, “And I can’t really fault you for that, can I? Though next time, should there need to be a next time _ ,  _ maybe you could talk me into letting you borrow a key. That is,  _ if _ your lead starts to show any promise.

“And although I am willing to place my trust in you, Cooper, I am going to have to walk you back to your dorm if you want to avoid your dorm mother.”

There are too many things to process at once: he’s doing the finger-licking thing again which is certain to cause her untimely death. He’s  _ placing his trust in her _ , which sounds like something out of a historical fiction romance and makes her heart flutter a little. He called her Cooper, which she’s always kind of hated, but she’s definitely going to make an exception this time. And even though she could admit to him that she’s pretty good at lock picking, she’s not going to show all her cards at once, nor would she protest a dimly lit walk with him to the opposite side of the school.

They walk in silence; Betty’s brain shuffles through any possible topic or question to draw something out of him, something other than banter, something real. She’s landed on  _ what’s the best part of working security?  _ with the hope that he might respond  _ finally getting a chance to talk to you,  _ but then she feels fingertips brush against hers in the dark of the hallway and she loses the ability to form syllables. 

“Sorry,” Jughead mumbles, and Betty wants to scream  _ Are you?! I’m not! _

They reach the girls dorm too soon. Jughead reaches for a ring of keys and stabs one through the lock. “Here,” he directs, and Betty steps close enough that her shoulder is touching his arm. “There’s, um, kind of a trick to this. If I let you borrow them for investigating.” In his whisper, any bravado and confidence from his interrogation has softened; he’s nervous. 

“The old locks are sticky, so you have to feel for the right moment to push, otherwise you risk fighting with it, which will rattle the door and draw attention. So,” he holds out a hand, and Betty bites down on her tongue as he takes hers and places it on the key. She grips, and then his hand grips around hers, turning slowly. They’re pressed together, her back to his chest, and Betty wonders if this is what it feels like to have an aneurysm. 

“There,” he says, and she feels the tension on the key and pushes firmly. The lock gives. Jughead props the door just barely open with the toe of his shoe. “You’re a natural, Cooper. We’ll be in touch.”

Betty floats back to her room, unsure whether or not she’s been breathing for the last ten minutes. Laying in bed, Veronica still missing, Betty can’t concentrate on anything except the fact that she’d never felt this goddamn horny in her life. She’s not desperate enough to raid the drawer containing Veronica’s vibrator army she’d found on accident, so Betty relies on her own fingers.

Even though she’s definitely  _ thinking  _ about someone else’s.

  
  
  


During breakfast the following morning, Betty realizes that following her roommate is a lot more difficult when said roommate is the one inviting her to eat meals and study together over the weekend. “Cheryl was summoned home for some ghastly maple syrup harvest ritual by her parents, so I need to get a lot of homework done,” Veronica explains, sipping her Earl Grey. “I’m sure you’re still digging yourself out of the catch-up work from Principal Honey?”

Betty is, indeed, miserably behind, despite not yet having much in the way of friends or extracurriculars. If she powers through this weekend, she’ll be in good shape, but if she wants anything of value to report back to Jughead, it’s going to take some juggling. “Library day it is,” Betty agrees. 

Veronica places her silverware on her empty plate with the kind of etiquette Betty’s mother would swoon for and grants Betty a sliver of opportunity. “I need to grab a book from upstairs first, but I’ll meet you there in, like, an hour?”

What book takes an hour to retrieve? Betty fumbles for the first response she can think of. “Sure. I was going to check out the, um, gym. Maybe get a workout in.”

Veronica raises her eyebrows, impressed. “Power to you, cheerleader B,” she cooes. Betty waves her ahead, letting her get a head start. She can always feign confusion about the school layout if she bumps into Veronica at an inopportune moment, but Betty needs to lose her guide first. 

Waiting a beat before leaving the dining hall, Betty’s eye catches on his table. Toni looks exhausted, her pink hair in a messy bun and hands curled around a mug of coffee. Sweet Pea has most of the table’s attention through some sort of retelling. Jughead takes an enormous bite of a toast/omelette/bacon construction and nearly spits it across the table when Sweet Pea says something that makes him laugh. Betty feels a twinge of jealousy—not because they’re close to him, not because he’s clearly got friends who care about each other, but because Betty wants  _ all  _ of that. In comparison, her friendly breakfast with Veronica probably looked like a cordial business meeting. 

Betty slinks out of the dining hall before any of them notice her staring. She heads towards the East stairwell, having seen Veronica head that way. It’s probably not going to amount to anything; the daytime doesn’t seem to be the locus of Veronica’s secrets. But if she can find something,  _ anything,  _ then maybe in a few weekends she’ll be holed up with Jughead in the  _ Herald,  _ talking about their schemes to unravel the undergraduate admissions bribes of fellow Stonies (or, more likely, their parents). Or if Betty plays her cards right, they won’t be talking much at all. 

But it’s while distracted by this option—imagining how soft his hair might feel woven between her fingers, what his conditioner smells like, how tuggable it might be given the right opportunity—that Betty misses the last stair, falling in a disastrous smack at the top of the stairs. The students milling out of the dining hall give her pancaked form a wide berth, and thankfully it’s enough that Veronica won’t turn and see her (though Betty’s more concerned that she can no longer see, nor tail Veronica).

Betty pushes herself up slowly, her heart stopping when she sees a dark haired boy standing over her, offering his hand. 

It’s not him, but it  _ is _ his friend Fangs, and her face is still very hot. Smiling awkwardly, Betty takes his hand for help.

“You okay?” he as Betty brushes herself off.  _ Fine, just fantasizing about your roommate and wishing I could ask you a lot of very personal questions. _

“Yes, thank you,” she chirps politely, hearing her Cooper breeding in every syllable. Decidedly Old Betty. “I mean, as fine as one can be after cementing their future as a clumsy bitch in front of half the school.”

Fangs chuckles softly. “Betty, right?”

She nods, shy again but pleased that she’d been able to make a good impression. Well, an  _ interesting  _ impression. “Hey, if you wanna work on that huge quadratics review this weekend, I think Jug and I are gonna hit up the library tomorrow.”

“Oh!” Her goddamn facial capillaries do not have the slightest reprieve these days. Betty hopes she’s not noticeably sweating. “Thank you, that would be really great. I’m super behind. I mean, my old school was. We definitely didn’t even cover half the quadratics stuff last year that’s in that packet.” God, she’s bathering.  _ Betty Cooper do  _ not  _ fuck this up.  _

“Here,” Fangs hands her his phone and Betty takes it, staring blankly for a minute before realizing that he’s waiting for her to put her number in his phone. For the first time, she considers that maybe  _ Fangs  _ is into her—but she can’t dwell on it. If not, well, she’s elated to be making friends with someone patently cheerful and genuine—not an abundant personality type at Stonewall in Betty’s experience thus far. 

Willing her hands to be still as she types in her contact, she remembers that Veronica is long gone. “I have to go find my roommate but just text me and let me know!” Betty smiles, feeling the sharpest sense of genuine excitement she’s had since arriving at Stonewall.

Fangs waves, taking off down the other side of the hall. Betty resists the urge to literally jump up and down, channeling all her energy into a springy speed walk down the hall in the general direction of Veronica.

Betty does a sweep of the second floor—Veronica went in the opposite direction of the dorms, so clearly that’s not where she would be getting a book from. Betty skirts past the history offices, then the math department, but most of the doors are locked, glass frosted, and nothing moving or making noise behind them. Rounding the last corner of the floor, she’s about ready to turn back and wait for Veronica in the library when a door opens almost in front of her face. Betty stops, nearly toppling for the second time that morning to avoid topping into her roommate. 

“Jesus!” Veronica gasps. “Holy shit, Betty! You scared the Louboutins off me!”

Betty smothers a grin at the ridiculousness of Veronica’s expletive. “If it makes you feel any better, you scared me, too.”

“I thought you were going to the gym?” Veronica’s eyes are darting around, back into the chemistry lab. She looks nervous, though probably just startled.

Betty bites her tongue, remembering her sister’s advice to always tell a lie that’s as close to the truth as possible. “I was, but I had an embarrassing face-plant on the stairs… so I ducked up here to hide out for a second.”

Veronica’s brow furrows. “Damn, are you okay?” Betty nods a little overzealously, but Veronica doesn’t press any further. Instead she turns around and takes out a ring of keys—not unlike Jughead’s—and locks the door to the chem lab, groaning a little as she turns it jerkily, fighting the handle.

“The locks stick a lot, don’t they?” Betty murmurs, mostly to herself.

Veronica’s eyes narrow just a fraction, for just a second. “What?”

“Nothing,” Betty clips. “Nevermind.”

  
  
  
  
  


Veronica doesn’t sneak out Saturday night, which is slightly disheartening, given the evidence that Cheryl is out of town. Betty asked as casually as possible about the keys at dinner, but Veronica’s reply was a calm wave of the hand and a breezy comment about getting extra lab time from Dr. Beaker to work on her independent study. It’s not enough to abate Betty’s suspicion about Veronica possessing extra keys, but she supposes there are too many possible explanations to get very excited about any of them just yet.

There is chapel on Sunday—required despite the vague, nondenominational religiosity of Stonewall—and Betty finds herself spending the forty minutes staring at a stained glass window on one end of the chapel and trying not to stare at Jughead on the other end. (She’d found him almost immediately upon entry, slouched in one of the pews on the far right in such a way that betrayed he was clearly half-asleep.) Occasionally Veronica leans over, smirking and whispering something witty and mocking of the minister, and Betty smirks back even though she’s hardly listening to either of them. 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and Good Riverdale Betty would never dream of taking her phone out in the middle of a chapel service, but Stonewall Betty prays an unholy plea for news about her study date  _ (session,  _ she correctes) as she takes a Bible from the back of the pew and props her phone inside. Veronica looks pleased.

It’s from Fangs.  _ We’re heading to the library after breakfast. See you there?  _

_ Sweet and holy Jesus, thank you,  _ Betty praises silently. She sends a thumbs up and a simple smiley face back.

  
  
  
  


Betty can’t bring herself to glance their way during breakfast. Thankfully, Veronica distracts her with the backstory on Stonewall’s latest chaplain, and how her father (a member of the school’s board as well as their chief donor) had gone to bat for hiring an LGBTQ affirming minister. Ironically, the Blossoms had been his starkest opponent on the matter. This clarifies why Cheryl hadn’t brought Veronica home with her for whatever a  _ maple syrup ceremony _ entails. 

“I’m going to meet her halfway between Thornhill and here this afternoon. She’ll need to decompress before Monday.”

Betty’s chewing slows, wondering if Veronica saw Betty’s texts and is subtly granting her permission to study with the supposed social pariahs. Betty hadn’t thought this far ahead, but she also isn’t going to let Veronica—however much she wants to stay in Veronica’s good graces—prevent her from doing something she wants. Especially if that thing is spending several hours pining across a library table. 

Still, it’s relieving that when they clear their plates, the security-team table is empty, and Veronica heads directly to the parking lot.

Betty takes a deep breath at the library door, though the extra clarity of the oxygen only soothes her nerves for a moment. Did Fangs do this because Jughead was too nervous to ask her to hang out? Was he just being nice? Did he know that Jughead had let her off the hook on Friday for breaking curfew?

_ Oh my god, girl, get a grip.  _ Betty wrenches the door open. 

The library is full on weekends, particularly Sunday, it seems. While she and Veronica spent hours here yesterday, the atmosphere was much more relaxed. Now, everyone is cramming, and even the co-working areas are quiet. It gives Betty a momentary sense of gratitude that she goes to a school where students seem to genuinely want to do well academically.

She spots them at a table on the far side of the room. Her heart thrums when she sees Jughead’s gray hat—she’s a big fan of his hair, but the hat gives him a softer edge. She has the sense that he might feel safer with it on, and she likes that idea. 

She’s absolutely lost her mind.

Fangs looks up and smiles. “Hey, welcome to the party of suffering and the torment of quadratics.”

Jughead’s head spins, doing a double take that makes her stomach flip. The flash of surprise on his face tells Betty that he had no idea she was coming. To control her own expression, she focuses on his paper, which is covered in more doodles than algebraic conversions from standard to vertex form.

She slides into the seat next to Fangs, across from Jughead. His eyes haven’t left her, and it gives Betty a surge of confidence. “So, completing the square?”

Fangs groans. “Yeah, I forget how to do this every single time.”

Betty has to clench her jaw to prevent herself from launching into tutor-mode. She  _ does  _ actually know this really well; Alice would pore over Betty’s algebra homework last year like a hawk looking for a dropped negative.

Jughead slides his packet part way across the table. “I did the first one.”

She reaches over a bit to look at it, then pulls it all the way over. Her brow furrows as she squints at his calculations. “This is a mess. I mean, I think it’s right but… wow.” 

Jughead, thankfully, looks more amused than insulted. “Well, Betty, in the spirit of precision, how would you do it?”

Betty bites her tongue to keep herself from smiling like a complete dope. “If you keep the y-variable isolated on one side of the equation the whole time, you don’t have to move anything over at the end. Less room for error.” She prints her steps neatly in descending rows while Fangs watches over her shoulder.

Jughead quirks an eyebrow, looking at his friend. “What do you think? Are you going to be loyal to the Jones method, or has she poached you?”

Fangs narrows his eyes, glancing between them. Betty feels her neck get hot. “I mean, I’m going to need a lot of help understanding what  _ any  _ of those steps mean, but… I do think Betty’s is a little more… polished.”

Jughead sighs, but the way his eyes settle on her is nothing other than pleasing. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

Betty realizes she is chewing on her lip and stops. Alice liked to remind her that it wasn’t her cutest trait. “I prefer a clean and thorough methodology.”

His mouth fights a smile, reading between her words. “I should hope so. I’m looking forward to hearing your updates.”

Betty swallows, shaking her head minutely. They can’t talk about this here, when Veronica has unknowable eyes and ears in this school.

Fangs is staring at Jughead like he’s grown a third arm. Betty turns abruptly to help him through the finer points, but she feels Jughead’s eyes on her.

  
  
  


They finish most of the review packet over the next couple hours. Fangs excuses himself to work a shift in the security office. “Filing duty, bro,” he moans to Jughead as he slings his backpack over his shoulder.

Silence falls between them once Fangs leaves, and Betty feels like her throat might close up. Jughead is eating again—peanut butter filled pretzels this time—and she’s trying to construct a clever way to tease him about it when she feels a shadow over her shoulder.

Actually, it’s two of them—Moose and one of his friends that all but propositioned her in the library last week. Betty doesn’t let it get to her head; a school like this, where everyone has known each other since primary school? It’s all about fresh meat, and that’s all she is. 

“Hey, Betty, right?”

Betty rolls her eyes just slightly, hoping that Jughead detects her derision without appearing outright rude. It’s hard to shed all her oldest habits. “Hi,” she greets, but she keeps it clipped. “Can I help you? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

Moose takes a step back, but appears otherwise unaffected. “My bad, sorry to interrupt your, um…” For the first time, Moose seems to acknowledge Jughead’s presence. “Tutoring session?” he guesses, or maybe insults, though Betty’s not sure where the offense is supposed to land. 

“Like I said, can I help you?” she repeats, still more sweetness in her tone than she’d like. 

“Just wondering if you’d like to eat dinner with us,  _ Mary. _ Just trying to be hospitable.”

Betty’s brain goes blank, half enraged and half amused, but wholly incredulous that a prep school boy had really just called her a  _ Mary.  _ She knows he’s just being defensive and prideful, but it feels like a major loss to New Betty. 

Jughead mutters something under his breath. Betty can’t hear him, but she mostly hopes Moose doesn’t notice. Moose’s skull alone looks thick enough to concuss Jughead in a brawl.

“No, thank you,” she bites back, a thin scrap of a smile containing her derision. “I’m meeting my roommate.” Betty turns pointedly back to her notes. In her periphery, she sees Moose back off, fingers flexed like he’s letting the rejection roll off. 

Jughead murmurs, “Bye, Mason,” but she notes that his shoulders relax. She’s relieved he hasn’t reacted otherwise, that this hasn’t unsettled anything between them, until a minute later, he blurts, “I’ve um, actually got to head to a shift, too. But you should let me know once you have any more intel for the story.” 

“Oh, right,” Betty says, grappling for something to leave on, something promising or inviting. “I think I’m getting close.”

She’s not close at all—she has almost nothing—but Jughead seems pleased by her answer. “I look forward to hearing the details soon. Let me know if I can be of any service.”

_ I can think of  _ many  _ services.  _ Betty tries not to watch him fumble with his book bag, or fiddle with the rings on his fingers as he gathers his things to leave, but she’s staring long enough to catch him throwing a look over his shoulder from the exit. She blushes, but she’s too far away to tell whether maybe he does, too.

  
  
  
  


In an effort to avoid the jock contingent, Betty stays in her room during dinner. Thankfully, Veronica returns not long after the dining hall closes with a Pop’s to-go bag. 

“You were in Riverdale?” Betty gasps. 

“Indeed, Cheryl loves Pop’s. I brought you a present! I hope it’s okay lukewarm.” 

It’s a cheeseburger, and Betty’s eyes close when she takes a bite, flooded with a surprising pang of homesickness. Polly is probably home by now, probably put on a strict pregnancy nutrition regimen by Alice. Betty hopes that she manages to get a milkshake every once in a while. She should call—it’s kind of terrible that she hasn’t yet. Then again, unless Alice has confiscated Polly’s phone, her sister hasn’t bothered to call and ask how being shipped off to boarding school is going. 

_ She’s probably having a really hard time. Mom is probably making her lie to her college friends. Probably going to make her transfer somewhere close to home in the fall. Polly probably doesn’t have her phone and doesn’t want to call from the corded landline, overheard by Alice.  _ Both Old and New Betty can invent excuses for Polly on a dime.

“Are you okay?” Veronica asks with genuine concern. 

“Yeah,” Betty croaks out after swallowing. “Just makes me think of home.”

Veronica hums sympathetically. She turns to rustle around in the drawers of her desk, and Betty wonders idly if Veronica’s going to sneak out tonight. Betty knows she doesn’t have the energy to follow; the cheeseburger is already lulling her into drowsiness. 

Plus, the burger marks a moment between her and her roommate, the potential for exchange. The potential for something, anything she could bring to Jughead to prolong her quest to be an interesting and relevant writer and person, to get her onto the  _ Herald _ staff. To get her into Jughead’s head the same way he’s living in hers.

So Betty blurts out, “Where do you go when you sneak out, V?”

Veronica spins around, but the shock on her face firms and dissolves in a matter of seconds. “Just to see Cheryl, of course. We both used to have singles, so… we have to be a little more extracurricular about our intimacy.”

It’s a deflection, Betty can tell. Her words are too fluid. Rehearsed, even. But Betty knows it’s not the moment to press. 

Veronica perches on her bed, directly across from Betty. Taking the last bite of her burger, she gets the feeling that Veronica is settling in for her own interrogation. 

“I heard you were quite the boy magnet in the library today,” Veronica raises her eyebrows, her tone teasing and suggestive, but Betty knows she’s got a deeper motive somewhere. 

Betty rolls her eyes, but Veronica presses. “Did you really blow off Moose Mason?”

“Ugh,” Betty scoffs, wiping the grease from her fingers and lips. “Yes, he’s so smug. And he called me a  _ Mary,  _ so he can go whack himself off for the rest eternity as far as I care.”

Veronica’s mouth pops into a delighted gasp and curls to rest in a devious smirk. Betty exhales, relieved that Veronica seems pleased rather than aghast at the potential social faux-pas of rejecting a male of status.

“What about Jones?”

Betty stops breathing for a solid five seconds. “Huh?” is all she manages, with a probably very unconvincing look of confusion splashed across her face. After all, she doesn’t know what Veronica knows or senses. Or what Veronica’s approval or disapproval would entail. 

But she’s the mark—Betty needs to stay on her good side. 

“I heard he was sitting with you. That he seemed jealous.”

Betty laughs. “Um, no. I mean, I don’t think so. I just ran into him and we were checking answers on our math review with each other.”  _ A lie close to the truth.  _

As she studies Veronica’s response, Betty feels tempted to confess, to plead for the confidence of her roommate as a true friend. But the other half knows that this whole conversation is probably a test. Betty asked where Veronica goes—Veronica is asking if Betty can be trusted not to tell some  _ boy. _

Well, she can’t, it turns out. But for the first time, Betty feels the tiniest bit bad about it. So she leans into the truth as much as she can. After all, this  _ is  _ her new start.

“I mean, whatever,” she explains to Veronica. “It’s flattering, I guess. But that’s not really what my focus is right now. There’s so much I don’t know about Stonewall, and so much I want to be able to take advantage of here. I’m not thinking about attaching myself to some guy as soon as possible. I want to be my own person here.”

By the satisfied grin that creeps across Veronica’s face, Betty knows she’s passed. “So you shall, Betty Cooper.”

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Once Jughead has spent time with Betty outside of class, it becomes increasingly difficult to concentrate during time spent with her inside of class. Her investigative prowess is admirable. Based on her application file to the  _ Herald, _ her writing even more so. And then there is the additional element of her painful attractiveness—and Jughead really is  _ painfully  _ attracted to her. He is neither smooth nor a fan of putting himself out there, but damn if Betty Cooper doesn’t make him want to take a leap of faith and kiss her. 

From the way her eyes tend to bore a hole in the back of his head during lit class, he’s beginning to think it would not be an unwelcome move. Each time she goes pink after realizing he is watching her watch him, Jughead’s confidence inches upward. 

Unfortunately for him, his idiocy climbs upward alongside it. 

Thinking back to the way he practically bolted out of the library after watching Moose Mason hit on her—she turned him down,  _ thank god _ —and then the stilted, absurd offer to  _ be of service,  _ like he is some sort of journalistic robot on Dilton Doiley’s level of awkwardness rather than a normal human being, Jughead wants to roll into traffic. 

It’s all Fangs’s fault. He had clearly talked with Betty at some point— _ gotten her number, even _ —and invited her to study with them. When he had looked up from the sea of algebra to see her once again in tight black athletic pants, Jughead swallowed his own tongue and thought he had begun to hallucinate. She then politely but brutally massacred his quadratic techniques and he still isn’t sure if it annoyed him or turned him on. 

(Given that she had done it while leaning across the table to look at his packet, giving him a spectacular view of her legs and the tiniest hint of her bare skin under her soft sweater, Jughead is more than sure it was a turn on.) 

Even though an entire day has passed since they parted ways in the library, Jughead can’t stop harping on how ridiculous he must have sounded. 

The shy smile Betty throws his way over her cardboard cafeteria cup of coffee at the start of class tells him it can’t have been all that bad, so he tries to take the win. The couple of feet that separate their desks has never felt so vast; all he wants to do is spin around to face her and ask if she has discovered anything about Veronica Lodge’s night-time excursions. 

Possibly ask Betty if there are any night-time excursions she might want to go on herself. With him. In the chemistry lab, or the Herald office, or even deep into the library stacks. Literally anywhere that allows them to be alone and within close proximity of each other. 

_ My god, calm down,  _ he tells himself. It is 9am on a Monday, he cannot let himself get this amped up about time alone with Betty. Not when he can’t get a good read on whether she even wants to spend time alone with him. 

The swift way she shut down Moose was a beacon of light against his fog of worry that she may have been dragged under by Veronica and Cheryl’s influence, but it could also mean Betty isn’t interested in  _ anything  _ at all. Not that he could blame her for wanting to avoid the tangle of hormonal and emotional gordian knots that was the Stonewall dating pool; with such a small contingent to choose from, the sheer number of fallouts that have happened since puberty hit campus is astronomical. 

When he chances a look back in her direction, Jughead catches her lost in thought. She just so happens to be lost in thought with her gaze fixed on where his hands are tapping an indiscriminate rhythm against his own takeout cup of cafeteria coffee. Biting back a grin, he pulls his hands away from the cup to fiddle with one of his rings and then crack his knuckles. 

If they’re going to dance around each other, he might as well have a little bit of fun while beckoning her to come out of her shell. 

His left thumb has just popped loudly when Ms. Haggly calls out sharply, “Alright, let’s see who did their homework this weekend. Ms. Cooper, you have one minute to pick a scene you found interesting. We will read it aloud and then you can share your thoughts on it.” 

Singling Betty out, as the one student who has a credible reason to be behind but who would be an easy target for not being ‘up to Stonewall standards’ for not catching up quickly enough, is a real dick move. Jughead opens his mouth, halfway to defending her on this very point, when Betty answers. 

“Act II, scene 1.” By his count, she still had about 38 seconds to go on the clock and Jughead finds himself beaming with pride. Pride slides into satisfaction at the look of begrudging shock on Haggly’s face. She clearly had been looking for an easy target to decimate this morning. “And, I suppose, around line 510, when Beatrice and Benedick are speaking together.” 

Murmurs and chuckles go around the room. Betty blinks innocently, as though she can’t tell if her classmates are determining whether to call her a suck-up or congratulate her for sticking it to the teacher. Only Jughead can see the smile she bites back. 

“Very well, thank you, Ms. Cooper. You will read Beatrice and Mr. Mantle can be your Benedick.” 

Jughead deflates, swallowing down the particularly bitter mouthful of coffee he had just swigged. Despite the astronomical odds of another Shakespeare-read-aloud-inspired relationship, he can’t help but grumble to himself and throw a dirty look in Sweet Pea’s direction. Naturally, Sweet Pea doesn’t see it because he is frantically flipping pages to reach the scene, but Toni clocks the look and raises an eyebrow at him. 

He sinks down in his chair and pulls a crushed granola bar from his backpack. 

It isn’t his normal fare, but it is just on the too-sweet side of healthy and the mouthful of chocolate makes him feel better. Toni almost certainly will call him out on his ‘emotional eating’ at lunch and he will then have to explain  _ why  _ exactly the idea of Betty and Sweet Pea reading a scene between two love interests makes him emotional. The mere idea of that conversation almost makes him consider skipping lunch altogether. 

Almost. 

Instead he suffers through Sweet Pea reading off-meter, grating against the melodic rhythm of Betty’s voice. Jughead glowers through the rest of class, annoyed with himself for being so ridiculous, and tries to regulate the pace of his thoughts. 

“Jughead?” 

He jumps to attention at Betty’s voice behind him—and her  _ hand on his shoulder.  _ “Wha—yeah, hi, what?” 

_ Absolutely brilliant. What a way with words, Forsythe. Really living up to your status right now.  _

Betty emits a small giggle; she is far too nice to outright laugh at his idiocy, even if it’s deserved. “Class is over, Jug.” 

_ Christ,  _ he thinks. When Betty giggles again, he realizes that may have been out loud. 

“I know we’re not parochial, Jughead, but I still don’t think you should take the Lord’s name in vain.” Her mock seriousness is so convincing that, for a beat, he blinks up at her stupidly and considers apologizing. 

The eyebrow raise she gives him in response is unfairly adorable. 

“You might want some more coffee before your next class. See you later!” she calls over her shoulder as she exits the classroom with something of a flounce. 

He is so gone for this girl it’s not even funny. 

Well, apparently it is mildly funny to the girl in question. Jughead can only hope that means the scales are tipped in his favor. 

  
  
  


The workload at Stonewall has never particularly bothered Jughead beyond irritation at how much time is spent in the library or at his desk instead of working on the paper or his novel. It can—and does, for many—limit the amount of time for socializing, which hasn’t been a problem for him. The merry band of misfits that is the scholarship and security group have successfully broken Jughead free of his loner weirdo tendencies, but they all understand the mutual need to stay on top of their class work.

Afterall, when your tuition is on the line and not coming from a blank check, you sacrifice your free time in the name of your GPA. Jughead’s drive to prove himself to his richer classmates placed him in the top 10% of the grade and got him a coveted feature writer spot on the  _ Emerald Herald  _ as a freshman—and was unanimously voted the editor-in-chief as a junior. 

But now his homework is cutting into time he could spend getting to know Betty, which is a tragedy of the Shakespearean sort. 

It takes until the next lit class for Jughead to see her for more than 30 seconds or outside of the library. She has mercifully always responded to his brief hellos and waves, but Jughead knows how much catching up she must have to do and doesn’t want to disturb her studying. 

Especially not when Veronica and Cheryl tend to be in her immediate vicinity as she works; sometimes they are also buried in books, but usually one or both of them is examining their nails or typing furiously on their phones and will take the time to look up and glare at him like he is gum on their stilettos. 

Even before class on Wednesday morning, Veronica helps Betty run through flashcards of historical dates, though Jughead likes that Veronica looks proud when Betty answers everything correctly in rapid fire. In celebration, Veronica leads a contrived sort of handshake that Betty looks overwhelmed by trying to keep up. 

Jughead hears the disdain in Cheryl’s voice when she watches the two of them. “Darling Betty, you really need to keep up.” 

The shade of pink that covers Betty’s face is not nearly as sweet as the one she wears when they dance around each other in what sometimes passes as flirting. She looks embarrassed, as though chastened for merely thinking she might be fitting in and doing well; Jughead wants chop off Cheryl’s stupid shiny mane of hair right at the top of her stupid shiny velvet scrunchie for making Betty feel anything other than welcomed.

But Cheryl is nothing if not a harbinger of doom and gloom, so Betty’s crestfallen expression holds over through Haggly calling them all to attention and requesting that Dilton begin reading aloud. Jughead should pay attention, knowing that given Haggly’s mood this week they may well end up with a short essay assignment out of the blue. Instead, his concentration is on a page toward the back of his notebook, surreptitiously ripping it out along the perforations, folding it into large fourths, and then letting the tip of his pen rest on the page until the ink blots into a blur. 

For someone supposedly good with words, Jughead sure can’t make them work in his favor when it comes to Betty Cooper. 

_ Detective Cooper —  _

(Humor should work, right?) 

_ Lunch in the Herald office? We can —  _ he is on the verge of writing ‘debrief’ until he realizes that sounds far too much like a come on than he wants it to. For now. 

_ We can work on your feature test piece. _

_ — Jug _

Three more folds and the note is small enough to take flight when he angles his body toward Betty’s desk, tossing it gently in her direction. 

Several heads swivel at the movement: Sweet Pea, Toni, Cheryl, and Veronica. It’s a wonder Haggly doesn’t notice the mass switch in attention and Jughead wonders just how many of them were watching him, or watching Betty. 

Betty, ace investigator that she is, doesn’t flinch or move at the appearance of the note. Jughead watches carefully from the corner of his eye as she slides the paper toward her, angles her copy of the play to sit in her lap, and unfolds it quietly behind the pages. All without taking her eyes off the board. 

It is the hottest thing he has ever seen. 

When Haggly has her back to the class for a moment, Betty reaches out with her foot to gently tap the leg of his desk chair.  _ Damn  _ this girl is good. Jughead turns to look at her, eyebrows raised in what he hopes is not too overeager of an expression, and she rewards him with a quick nod and the smile he could dream about for days to come. 

_ See you then,  _ Betty mouths. 

He desperately tries (and fails) to not look at the shiny gloss of her lips and whether she tastes as good as she looks. The way that she chews on her bottom lip and bats her lashes gives Jughead the feeling that he’s getting a taste of his own medicine now. 

Jughead is proven right come lunchtime. When he uses his hip and elbow to open the  _ Herald _ office door, balancing a heavily laden lunch tray in both hands, he finds Betty lounging in his desk chair, legs propped up on the desk and skirt shifted ever-so-slightly up her thigh. 

“Beat ya,” she says before crunching into an apple. She offers him a soft smile with mischievous eyes while chewing, then uses a manicured nail to carefully swipe juice away from her lips. 

Without a doubt, Betty is trying to kill him. 

“Now I see why,” Betty laughs in response to him setting down the tray of food and wheeling over another chair. He mirrors her from the other side of the large desk, extending his legs so that his own sneakers rest tantalizingly close to hers. 

Yes, collecting his required amount of sustenance took a while, but Jughead was also deferred by running into Sweet Pea on his way out of the cafeteria. His friend had been  _ very  _ curious as to where he was going in such a rush during lunch after ‘practically eye-fucking the new girl while passing notes like a twelve-year-old.’

He is not about to admit that to Betty, though. 

“I’m a growing boy, Detective Cooper.” Jughead chews on a bite of his sandwich, forgoing the attempt to be smooth—he’s fucking hungry and there is no way to make this look cute; he accepts this fate. 

He at least heeds many of Toni’s complaints and waits to speak until he’s finished. Nothing if not a gentleman. Jughead didn’t  _ actually  _ have any questions or instructions for Betty about the article she’s convinced him to let her explore, but he is curious enough to chalk this lunch up to professional interest and not just an excuse to flirt. 

There is also the nagging feeling that Betty, though quick on her feet, might not be up to a full-blown lie in the face of a Lodge-Blossom interrogation and Jughead wants to give her a leg to stand on, both for the flirting and the investigating. 

“Full disclosure,” Jughead starts. 

“So I had a thought—” Betty begins, drawing herself up as though to project more authority. She deflates somewhat as they stumble over each other’s words, but her spine is still upright and at the ready. 

“Go for it,” he cedes. 

“No, no, you’re the editor, I’m the newbie. You first.” 

Her thought sounded far more interesting than what was going to be a very dry introduction to how a prep school newspaper is run, and perhaps even a bit of humble-bragging about being the first non-senior editor-in-chief, but the way Betty leans forward to rest her chin on steepled fingers has him changing course. 

“Full disclosure,” Jughead restarts, “Going full Nancy Drew on Veronica Lodge still feels dicey on the whole, let alone as her roommate.” He sees some of the glimmer in Betty’s eyes dim at the topic, and he can’t be sure if it is because she does or doesn’t agree with him. “ _ But,  _ I would be lying if I said I hadn’t spent all week thinking about you and your investigation.” 

Her smile re-lights, catching the way he stumbles on  _ thinking about you,  _ and Jughead can’t tell if he wants to die of embarrassment or hold her challenging stare. 

“If I’m Nancy Drew, are you Ned or one of the Hardy boys?” 

Betty takes another bite of her apple and he watches her, incapable of much else. Something breaks the tension in the air between them, both Betty and Jughead cracking into quiet laughter. 

“I don’t know, Ned is pretty useless in most of the books.” 

They eat in companionable silence for half of Jughead’s sandwich and most of his first bag of chips. 

“I’ve also spent the whole week thinking about you and the investigation,” Betty acknowledges. Her tone is sly but her expression shows no teasing. “I haven’t uncovered much of anything, especially not while trying to catch up for midterms.” It seems hard for her to admit this and Jughead, unsure of how to demonstrate sympathy for someone he rarely knows, offers up the sour cream and onion crisps. 

“The workload is impossible on a good day,” he says, wanting to reassure her. “I know we only have Haggly together but you are more than holding your own in there, so I am sure you’re getting up to speed easier than you think.” 

Betty smiles but ducks her chin, shy. “Still… I wanted to be, well, not something different when I came here, but something more. More than just Betty Cooper, she who only does homework and has no fun. Hard to do that when I’m drowning in homework.” 

Jughead  _ hm _ s. “And post-curfew breaking and entering is your idea of fun?” 

“Well it wouldn’t be breaking and entering if someone were to lend me their keys,” Betty suggests, with a quirked eyebrow. 

Like everything else with Betty Cooper, the idea is tempting. It might also land him in hot water—to say  _ the least _ —with his dad, or even put his dad’s job at risk. Jughead gets the sense that if he were to give that explanation to her, Betty would drop it entirely; if she drops it entirely, then his opportunities to spend time with her are practically nil. 

Compromise, he decides. An absolutely terrible idea nonetheless, but a compromise. 

“The keys stay with me, unfortunately.” Betty’s face falls a little again, looking resigned, so Jughead forgoes the dramatic pause he wants to throw in for effect. “But if you’re willing to risk your social status, you can join me on lock-up rounds to explore.”

The beaming smile he gets in response is worth all the heat he will inevitably get for this. 

  
  
  
  


Jughead isn’t scheduled for night rounds until Friday evening, which works in his favor to get ahead on some classwork before his brain is inevitably derailed by proximity to Betty. 

It also allows him the beautifully satisfying moment in Friday morning English Lit of turning in his seat after the bell rings to tell Betty in a low voice, “I work tonight if you’re still game to use the building keys in a semi-legitimate fashion.” 

Excitedly, Betty nods her head, ponytail bobbing. “I realized I have something that may qualify as intel, too.” She glances at the clock and winces. “I have to get all the way to the other end of the building for my next class. Give me your phone?” Her frantic hand gesture is adorable and Jughead bites back a grin as he pulls the phone from his pocket and swipes open the passcode. He doesn’t even get the chance to pull open a new contact form before Betty snatches it from him. 

Eyes bore into the back of his head. Several sets, he confirms, glancing over his shoulder to see Veronica tapping her toe with pursed lips, Sweet Pea looking gleeful, and Toni shaking her head, bemused. 

“I’ll text it to you later,” Betty says in a stage whisper before pressing his phone back into his palm. The tips of her fingers burn against the inside of his wrist, but she is gone in a flash. 

Left open is a text message thread with ‘Detective Betty Cooper,’ and the message she sent herself to get his number: two tiny pink hearts. 

  
  
  


There is no way around the fact that the Stonewall Prep Security Team jackets are ugly and unflattering as sin. On a normal day, Jughead couldn’t care less about that and just tosses it on over whatever remnants of his uniform he’s still wearing but today— _ today _ he will be joined by a likely-running-tights-clad Betty Cooper and Jughead would prefer to look less absurd in the bright red, noisy, tarp-like anorak. 

Fangs gives him a look when Jughead squints into the fingerprint smudged reflection of his sleeping computer screen, trying to tame his unwashed hair beneath his beanie. “Are you primping, Jughead?” 

He clears his throat awkwardly, straightening up. “It keeps getting stuck in my eyeline, that’s all. I might have to take Toni up on her threat to come at me with her scissors.” 

His roommate gives a barely concealed snort as they trudge out the doors of their dorm. “Sure it has nothing to do with a certain ponytailed new girl who gave you her number this morning?” 

“No idea what you’re talking about, Fangs.” 

Fangs watches him out of the corner of his eye before shrugging and letting it go. That’s one of the things he likes about Fangs, both as a roommate and friend, he doesn’t push things further than the recipient is willing to go. 

As a partner for rounds, Fangs is also stellar. He is well-liked and friendly with a lot of their classmates, so a shift with Fangs will meander as he stops to chat with people and shoot the shit. Jughead often finishes before his friend and can choose between clocking out or joining for the last few buildings and maxing out his social quota for the month. His go with the flow attitude also means that Jughead doesn’t need to radio as often to check in, and therefore he is home free to meet Betty at their pre-arranged time. 

(He discovered throughout the afternoon that emojis are a standard in Betty Cooper texts, as are exclamation points. When Jughead had said to meet him at the  _ Herald _ office at 8:15, he received  _ Okay see you then! _ and a couple of blank boxes that had told him his phone is several updates behind Betty’s. Were they more hearts? A plain smiley? Should he even  _ care _ ? Obviously not, but he does.)

It had dawned on him after making the plan that Jughead locked the  _ Herald  _ office behind him when he left the night before. He might have warned her, but he is looking forward to seeing if locked doors are actually a deterrent for Betty. 

They are not, because Betty is once again sitting in his chair with her legs up when he comes through the door. 

The mental image of Betty picking the lock to his newspaper office, clad in all black save for her bright shoes and with her damp hair tied into a loose braid, is almost too much to bear. Jughead has half a mind to turn off his radio, lock the door behind them, and bury his face between her legs. The idea appears in his head out of the blue, as though this is what his brain does on a regular basis or as though he is even close to smooth enough to proposition her right then and there.

Some of his inappropriate thoughts must show on his face because Betty’s smirk melts into a blush and she worries her lower lip between her teeth. 

Jughead’s voice is a little throaty when he finds it. “I was wondering which side of the door you’d be on, honestly.” 

With a shrug, she stands to meet him at the door. He tries not to mourn the newfound daydream of peeling those leggings off her and kissing up her inner thighs while she sits in his editor’s chair. 

“What can I say, I like a challenge.” 

_ God _ , Jughead wants to kiss her. Instead, she slips past him through the open door and blinks expectantly while he fumbles to lock it once more, mind too foggy at the prospect of  _ challenging  _ her to get the handle to catch. 

“Need some help?” Betty’s voice teases from far too close to his ear. 

_ Gym socks. Fangs snoring at 4am. Cheryl Blossom’s snide voice. FP making dinner; FP burning dinner. Anything _ ** _ please_ ** _ ,  _ Jughead begs himself to quell the desire rising from low in his gut. 

Where before he had been annoyed by the stupid security jacket, Jughead is now grateful that the only size ever available is an XL and therefore the long hem of the coat is saving him from a mortifying interaction with Betty.

She must sense something of what is going on, though, because he feels the absence of her body heat behind him and hears her quiet throat clearing from a few feet away. “So where to, Mr. Security Ambassador?”  _ _

“Your text mentioned something about the chem lab, right?” 

Betty nods, straightening her shoulders and slipping into investigative mode. That turns him on even more and Jughead shifts his weight from foot to foot in an attempt to calm down. “Veronica has a set of keys for an independent study, so she says. But her schedule doesn’t show any open periods for that. Could be legit, or she could have stolen the keys.” 

Jughead hums, thinking. Beaker  _ had  _ complained that his supplies were missing, but he doubts there is much in a high school chemistry lab that is dual-purposed enough to warrant theft. “Alright, I need to finish locking up this building and then we can circle back around to the science wing. We can check out the stockroom to see if there’s anything worth stealing, or if there’s some evidence of Veronica’s so-called project.” 

The dark hallways, deserted at night, have always seemed eerie but not particularly spooky to Jughead; the light shudder Betty gives as he shuts off lights and locks doors seems out of place for her confident journalist demeanor, though. 

It occurs to him, belatedly, that her physical reaction might have more to do with being  _ with him  _ in the dark, behind locked doors, than it does about the shadows in the wood-paneled halls. 

She otherwise keeps her head on a swivel, watching all possible corners for clues or suspects. The situation feels cliche, but Betty as the ace reporter is doing all kinds of things for him. 

Clearly she is far better at this than he is, because Betty is the one to gasp in surprise and then yank Jughead into an alcove as they enter the science wing. “Look,” she whispers excitedly. “Cheryl  _ and  _ Veronica are all the way at the end of the hall?” 

Peeking his head out, jacket rustling obnoxiously, Jughead chances a look. 

The Blossom red hair is unmistakable. 

“Detective Cooper,” he whispers, grinning. “Your hunches are spectacular.” 

The red on Betty’s cheeks is unmistakable as well, but far more lovely. 

They stare at each other with an intensity that colors his own face and Jughead wonders how long it is going to take before he either loses his mind, or kisses her. Or both. 

The spell breaks when the clack of heels— _ heels? On a weekend night at school? Come on— _ speed up and Jughead hears Cheryl fail at a whisper to say, “Oh fuck I think Jones Senior is behind us.” 

Furrowing his brow, Jughead wonders what his dad would be doing in the academic halls unprompted when he and Fangs are on shift. There isn’t much time to think on it when the heels come closer and Betty is yanking on the neck of his jacket, spinning them both, and pushing him into an open closet door. 

He trips on a mop and just barely holds his balance when Betty shuts them in with a quiet  _ snick  _ of the door latch. Her instinct, yet again, is phenomenal because Cheryl and Veronica pass right by them behind the door, whispering a debate on taking the staircase at the end of the little alcove or trying to get down the hall.

Betty presses her ear to the door, listening intently, and Jughead tries to match her position but he is constrained by cleaning supplies and his coat makes a loud scratchy rustle against a metal rack.  _ _

This fucking  _ jacket _ , Jughead wants to yell. It takes up so much space and is noisy as all hell and the supply closet is already painfully tight quarters. 

“Jug,” Betty whisper-yells. “You have to stop moving, you’re making too much noise!”

He grumbles as quietly as possible. “It’s not me, it’s this damn security coat.” 

Betty starts, as though shocked by electricity, and turns around quickly. “Security coat,” she says, looking panicked. “Turn off your radio!” 

Fuck, he hadn’t even thought of that. It’s clipped into his back pocket, a location he cannot quite reach with how his arm is pinned between mops. “Um.” He stops and starts a few times, battling the need to not make her uncomfortable and the sheer terror of the loud radio getting them caught. “It’s in my back pocket and I can’t reach.” 

Betty’s little ‘ _ oh’ _ is practically silent. If it weren’t so dark, Jughead is sure they would both be bright red. She shuffles closer, her side pressed against him as she grasps blindly under the back of his coat. 

Any other goddamn time and he would be over the moon to have her hand on his ass and her body so close to his. Her hair, loose in its braid, wafts a floral scent toward him and an involuntary groan escapes him. 

“Sorry, sorry.” He feels her cringe, then feels the hand at his back pocket retrieve the radio and quickly retract. 

“Don’t apologize.” 

“No?” Betty holds the radio up to him in their confined quarters, looking cautiously hopeful. 

Jughead twists the dial, silencing it. 

“No,” he confirms. 

They are so close that Jughead can hear the slight hitch in Betty’s breath when he lets his gaze drop to her lips, that he can feel his heartbeat in his throat when her shaky exhale flutters against his skin. His eyes slide upward, to meet hers, but now her gaze is fixed on his own mouth. 

It’s unclear which of them moves first, only that the space to clear is infinitesimal and it takes no time at all to close the distance. With his free hand, Jughead cups her cheek and tilts upward, angling so he can better reach the softness of her lips. Betty feels pliable beneath him, as though all the tension has drained from her body and she is letting herself melt into him; he wants to be the solid frame for her to melt on, he is willing to hold her up for as long as she might let him. 

The damned coat crinkles slightly when Betty grasps at the lapels to draw him closer, inhaling deeply and pressing close, closer,  _ so close _ to him that the jacket is rendered useless against the heat of her body. She moves her mouth on his hotly, both their rhythms somewhat off-kilter out of sheer enthusiasm and their teeth clack twice before Jughead takes one beat to pause. Betty smiles against him in that second and the second is too long, an eternity to not be kissing her now that they have leapt over the useless boundary. 

With a little pressure, she edges his mouth open and nips at his bottom lip. Jughead needs her  _ everywhere _ , rubs circles on the apple of her cheek with his thumb, crushes the radio in his hand against her hip in an effort to align every inch of their bodies, inhales her gasp at the bite of plastic on her skin, thinks of a myriad of ways to elicit that gasp and many more every day for the rest of their lives. 

Soft fingers toy with the hair at his neck and now it’s Jughead’s turn to melt, and he curses the space because if they were back in the _ Herald  _ office he would lay Betty out across the large oak desk and kiss every bit of open skin. As it is, Jughead drags his mouth down her jaw and presses open-mouthed kisses alongside that perfumed braid. He laves his tongue over her skin and her heavy breathing awakens an absurd, animal need to mark her. There is a spot, he knows, just at the juncture of her shoulder that their uniform collars should cover if he can increase the pressure of his kiss. If she’ll let him. 

The shuddering sigh he gets after one careful suck on her skin tells him she just might. 

First, though, he needs to kiss her for real again. He trails back up to her kiss-swollen lips, pride blooming in his chest that  _ he  _ did that.  _ He,  _ Jughead Jones, has kissed Betty Cooper so thoroughly in this closet that her lips are puffy and sensitive. The bruising kiss he gives her next feels just tender enough for him that he knows he is in a similar situation. 

Good, he thinks. She can debauch him any time she wants. And she begins to, her fingers crawling under his shirt now to grasp firmly at his waist and pulling him to her.  _ God.  _

Just as Jughead is plotting what gymnastics would let him take off this jacket and Betty’s sweater without toppling over everything in the closet, he drops the radio to cup below her ass and haul her center even closer to him, and Betty moans. Loudly. 

The clattering of the device into a mop bucket and their hormonal coupling is mercifully drowned out by a loud radio squawk from the room outside. Jughead can hear his dad’s muffled bark talking into the walkie—a mood killer if ever there was one. 

Jughead gulps in air, drowning in the sensation of her. “I… I should probably go back to the office,” he laments. 

Betty nods, without moving to extract herself from his grasp. The bubble may have burst, but they are both breathing heavily and if Betty looks like she wants to climb him, Jughead must look like he is going to devour her. 

For good measure, Jughead guides her back to him and presses a soft, lingering kiss on her waiting mouth. 

“Let’s get you home, Nancy Drew.” 

.

.

.

_ tbc _

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you hadn't already guessed which Liv is responsible for which POV, the math teacher talks about quadratics and the librarian makes Nancy Drew references. 
> 
> thanks for being patient as we took our sweet, grad-school-laden time with this update! pretty please with Cheryl Blossom cherries on top leave a comment if you have the time!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been 1/? of a pandemic since we updated, and the jury is out on whether that's a blip or an eternity. regardless, mind (or don't) the rating, we're turning up the heat and blaming it on cabin fever.

_Baby, take me to the feeling  
__I’ll be your sinner in secret  
_-Run Away With Me, Carly Rae Jepsen

* * *

  
  


There isn’t a prayer that the Tylenol PM Betty pops when she gets back to her dorm room will help her sleep. Not when her lips are still swollen, when she can still feel the imprint from the mop bucket that dug into her calf, not when she can remember how she and Jughead came together like magnets, or the shudder he’d given under her trailing fingers. _ I just made out with Jughead Jones. _

She’s glassy-eyed thinking about how Jughead’s face melted into her palm when they said goodnight; he’d suddenly folded into himself with hesitation at the door to the girl’s dorm, and Betty had to tug him towards her, pulling his face to hers and kissing whatever doubt had suddenly appeared away. _ I want this, I want you. _

Betty’s restless heart skips a beat when she opens her own door to see the form of her sleeping roommate, who _ somehow _got back to the dorms before her, and thus ensures the scene that awaits Betty the next morning in the dining hall. 

Cheryl and Veronica sit side by side at their usual table, looking all too much like a war tribunal as Betty approaches with eye bags and a plate of two waffles with whipped cream and strawberries (because fuck off, Alice Cooper). Self-consciously, Betty swallows and wills herself not to cast a glance over to the security ambassadors’ usual table. She knows that if she catches sight of Jughead, her face will be an open book for them to read and pounce upon. 

It shouldn’t have to be like this, Betty thinks. She should be able to befriend or kiss anyone she damn well pleases. Riverdale Betty sat on her hands waiting for a boy like Jughead. Stonewall Betty wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

_ But. _ All of Veronica’s needling about Jughead earlier in the week told her one very important thing: Cheryl and Veronica weren’t going to let her in on their secrets without assurance that she wouldn’t go sharing them with the people that they disdain the most. _ Or, you know, publishing them in the school newspaper, _ Betty thinks and involuntarily gulps again. 

If things go according to plan with her investigations, Betty’s betrayal will be evident. She’ll discover why Veronica is stealing chemistry lab supplies, they’ll publish in the _ Herald._ There will be some backlash, which Betty tries not to think too hard about, but then she can be as loose-lipped about her romantic escapades as she wants. For now, she needs to play it coy. 

Cheryl’s eyes flicker to Betty’s plate. “How all-American of you, Betty.” 

As usual, Veronica counters Cheryl’s edge with enthusiasm. “Yum! Looks amazing.”

Betty smiles. She is nothing if not skilled in feigned politeness (for once, thank you Alice Cooper). “Want some?”

Veronica takes a forkful, despite Cheryl’s glinting eye, declaring through a mouthful of cream, “I love a decadent breakfast after a curfew-breaking late night, don’t you?” Veronica is not, Betty chastises herself, to be underestimated.

It’s useless to try to turn the question back on her, knowing that she’ll just use Cheryl as an alibi. Betty knows Cheryl really _ is _her alibi, though for what exactly, remains a mystery.

She can’t entirely leave Jughead out of her forthcoming lie—it will be impossible to mask why she’s spending a lot of future time in the newspaper office (though she hopes and prays that most of that time is straddling Jughead in that editor’s chair). “I was in the _ Herald _ office, doing some insane back-issue filing. I’m trying to get on Jones’s good side so that he’ll let me have my own feature without hassle. But you know how competitive the paper is.” Betty lays on the last point especially thick; they don’t seem the types to pay attention to high school journalism or its rigors.

Cheryl’s eyes glow like Betty’s stepped into her trap. “So _ that’s _ what the note was about.”

Betty feels the waffles churn in her stomach at the memory of her own suppressed delight. Of clenching her jaw, forming fists to resist snatching the note, and instead slowly sliding it out of sight and waiting until the spectators had turned. The way her heart lit up when she saw _ Detective Cooper. _Betty made herself think of cold things—the tin cup of a strawberry milkshake at Pops, Archie’s heat-less jalopy in the winter time—to avoid the blush that threatened to overtake her. 

Veronica, however, looks concerned. “I hope he’s not making you jump through hoops. I’m sure you’re better than anyone he’s got on that writing staff. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the type but… just don’t let him use you, Betty.”

“Oh,” Betty protests, “He’s definitely not like that.” Mentally, she curses herself again. Veronica had handed her an excuse on a silver platter. But of course, her gut instinct is to jump to the defense of Jughead’s honor. “I mean,” Betty amends, laying it on thick, “All men are trash but… he’s like, compostable at least.”

Veronica chuckles at the joke, and even Cheryl offers a toothless grin. 

Betty presses on before they can open a fresh line of inquiry. “Anyway, it’s just about the paper. My mom has been riding me about how I am going to get on the Ivy League radar now that I can’t be a student-athlete. And besides, I have like, a whole school year to usurp Jones as editor? Is it my fault if a tiny bit of flirting makes him think it’s his idea when I take his crown?”

Cheryl perks up at the hint of mutiny, pleased by the whiff of bloodthirst. “Ku-_ dos _, Betty. Weaponize those big eyes, girl.” She shares an eyebrow raise with Veronica, who just tilts her head and smiles like she’s taking the points for a victory.

Even though every inch of Betty is itching to text Jughead and ask what he’s up to for the afternoon, she flashes a grin at Cheryl and Veronica and asks, “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

Veronica’s smile is laced with I-can’t-tell-you-yet, which Betty relishes. Clearly, she’s steered herself out of danger. “We have lunch with Daddy in the city today, actually, so depending on the flight times, we may or may not be back by dinner.”

Betty is a little too speechless at the thought that her roommate has casual access to a private jet to do anything except nod politely. _ This is prep school. _

Of course, her next immediate thought is _ how quickly can I get Jughead Jones alone in the Emerald Herald Office? _

  
  
  


As soon as Cheryl and Veronica have blown their farewell kisses, Betty whips out her phone.

As eager as she’s been to talk to Jughead, of course it takes fifteen minutes to construct the exact text she wants to send: ** _Good morning! What are you up to today? No pressure, obviously, but I thought perhaps you could give me a “tour” of the Herald office later? _ **

She debates the quotation marks around _ tour, _ but she’s too committed to risk him taking her literally. Peppering in some emojis for good measure—a sun after _ good morning, _a winking face at the end, she hits send. She types and deletes a heart so many times that she keeps forgetting whether she sent it or not, and thus opens, closes, and reopens the message five separate times. (No heart, that might be overkill, at least for now.)

Thankfully, it buzzes back in less than three minutes (not that she’s counting).

** _you don’t even know how badly i want that… but i’m working the hell shift of office duty until like 4 _ **

Betty slumps against the ornately carved wall outside the chapel as she walks by. There was still something to be salvaged out of this. She takes a deep breath and bites her lip with gumption, thumbs tapping faster than she can regret her forwardness. ** _I could be convinced to reconsider locations. I’m amazing at… alphabetizing._ **

Her eyes flutter closed, already imagining wrapping her legs around his waist while she’s perched on a desk, her hands wandering under that stupid red security coat again, until his next text hits like a bucket of ice water.

** _um, my dad is here_ **

Betty already feels the cold panic sweat set in, even though obviously FP Jones has no way of reading his son’s texts or telepathically intuiting that over half of her brain activity consists of fantasizing about finally getting her hand in Jughead’s hair. Or how little she would hesitate to let him take her clothes off. 

Her phone lights up again:** _i’ll make it up to you_ **

It would be lying to say the thought didn’t make Betty gulp. She’s never been like this. Not even in the heat of her crush on Archie. Sure, Betty once pictured Archie tucking her under his arm as they walked down the hallway, or prayed to find him waiting outside her classes after the bell. She’d considered that kissing him would be nice. But it _ never _felt like this, like she might sooner set herself on fire and launch herself off the roof of the school than wait for the next time she could be alone with him.

This, she realizes, is what her mother was terrified of—this complete hormonal brainwash Betty’s experiencing as she sulks in the library, trying to parse out an essay topic for _ Much Ado About Nothing. _After an hour of digging herself into an academic panic, unable to stop thinking about what Alice Cooper might do if she found out Betty had a prep school boy… (friend? Toy? Were they dating now? Just hooking up?) Just another person she had to lie to. So far, Riverdale Betty was getting her wish, but Stonewall Betty was a lot more than she’d bargained for.

With a jolt of guilt, Betty remembers the person who’d really sent her to Stonewall in the first place. Packing up her books, Betty fumbles for her phone and takes off for the grounds in hopes of strong cell reception. Maybe her mother would answer, maybe it would go straight to a robotic voicemail—

Polly answers on the third ring. “Betty! Oh my god, I _ just _got my phone back from mom. My doctor insisted that I have some medical privacy, at least, so she caved.”

Even though Betty hoped that Polly was so non-communicative because of Alice’s overbearing nonsense, it’s more relieving to hear than she’d expected. She sinks onto a stone bench and resists the surprising impulse to cry. 

“That’s good, Pol. How is the… baby?” Betty isn’t sure how Polly feels about everything, if she even _ wants _this pregnancy. Then again, Betty knows better than to assume Polly would have the same reaction that Betty would; their similarities ended at appearance. Polly was a cheerleader for the status, but Betty liked the athleticism. Her sister had considered declaring pre-med to “meet future doctors”; Betty balks at the idea of either Polly or her boyfriend studying the hard sciences and yet failing at birth control. Somewhat uncharitably, Betty plasters Moose’s face over the image of Polly’s mysterious boyfriend. 

“Oh my god, it’s _ twins!” _

Betty’s thankful to already be sitting. “Wow, that’s… crazy. Congratulations.” She tries to keep her voice as bright as possible, but the magnitude of what her sister is going through hits full force. They’re only two years apart. Betty knows that this isn’t happening to _ her, _but it’s hard to process. She wants to hang up the phone and pretend none of this is happening. Stonewall is more than enough life change to adjust to; the thought of coming home at school breaks to nieces and/or nephews makes her head spin.

“I mean,” Polly sighs, “It’s all a total shitstorm. Mom won’t let me tell my boyfriend because his parents are like, insanely rich and she’s worried they’ll try to take the babies and totally control me.” Betty swallows, the Moose image cementing more firmly. He probably had an equally nauseating posh nickname like Scooter or Topper. 

“Meanwhile _ she’s _ trying to totally control me, though she’s probably right; his family is nuts. His mother would definitely make me sign an NDA. About a pregnancy conceived _ consensually! _But like, enough about me and my tragic teenage pregnancy shit. Tell me about Stonewall!”

At this point, Betty should be accustomed to her sister’s tendency toward whiplash tonal shifts, but it takes Betty a moment to grapple for a conversational ledge. 

“Um, good! I have a pretty nice roommate, she looks out for me. Also the insanely rich type though, which can be a bit surreal. School is hard, but I don’t really mind, it’s _ totally _ different from Riverdale. Like, the rich sporty kids are definitely the most popular, but people also respect you for being truly smart.” She’s rambling, bursting to tell Polly about Jughead, but she doesn’t want to rub it in. _ You’re forbidden from talking to your boyfriend but I can’t wait to blab about the same uncontrollable hormones that got you into this mess. _

“I always pictured prep school as like, kind of sexy and dangerous,” Polly hums conspiratorially. 

Betty laughs, panicking to hide her discomfort at how coincidentally close to the mark Polly hits. “It’s mostly just a lot more homework and teachers putting you on the spot in the middle of class. But…” 

Polly gasps. “There’s a boy. I _ knew _ it.”

There is no possible way that Polly knew it, but Betty smiles into the sisterly bonding ritual, relieved to finally tell someone something about Jughead. “Kind of. We’re not like, boyfriend-girlfriend, but I think we’re both really… into each other.”

Polly squeals. _ “What? _ Oh my god, tell me _ everything.” _So she does—leaving out the intricacies of stalking her roommate, but not glossing over the events of the broom closet. 

“I’m happy for you, Betty,” Polly affirms, though something extra creeps into her tone. “I think… I’m going to text you my doctor’s number. She’s discreet, and she knows how nuts mom is, so if you need her to write you a birth control prescription...”

Betty flushes with the mere thought of _ needing _ birth control, but it’s also not the worst idea she’s ever heard. “Is that legal? Like, without parental consent?”

“Completely. Which, obviously, I wish I had known. Along with the true effectiveness statistics of condoms. But she can’t tell mom or anything.”

Betty files this away for later and feels a fraction more relieved to share the news with someone else. And quell some of her most immediate knee-jerk feelings about it. Despite her very potent imagination, the _ reality _of sex has always felt kind of monumental. It’s not ultramodern of her, but she supposes that growing up in a conservative family, however intentionally she rebelled from them, has still rubbed off a little bit. Betty likes Jughead, and something in her body seems very, very aware of everything about his body. But she also doesn’t want to end up like her sister, and there has to be a middle ground. 

She and Polly say their goodbyes, vowing to call more often and swearing to text with updates about _ the boy _ as Polly calls him. (Betty probably won’t, but it will make Polly feel better to think that she might get some gossip.)

It is marginally easier to focus on her assignment when she returns to the library, and Betty makes decent headway when her phone buzzes again. A few seniors shoot her dirty looks from nearby (all of them are writing early decision applications). She takes it into the stacks where she’s searching for an anthology of essays about Shakespeare’s comedies.

The text is from Veronica. ** _Spending the night with Cheryl tonight; don’t wait up for me ;) _ **

Betty spends three seconds wondering why the winky face was truly necessary to insinuate why Veronica would be spending the night with Cheryl. They were texting lingerie sets to each other in plain view at dinner this week—Betty has a pretty good idea how sexually active they are. It could be another attempt to draw Betty off the scent. 

But what Veronica doesn’t understand is that this leaves Betty with a room to herself. And with a boyfriend-ish person with keys to the entire campus. Including the girls dormitory. 

Betty’s whole body blushes as she thinks about the pink tie-dye comforter she’d begged her mom for in the pre-Stonewall bribery days. Would he think that it was lame? Childish? Would he be willing to be… _ with her _in any capacity of the word if he can see every aspect of who she really is? Pink choices and all?

Biting her lip, Betty realizes she’ll have to invite him first. And maybe risking his position two nights in a row was a little further than Jughead was willing to go. Even if she was fully planning to make out with him. Hopefully horizontally. On said tie-dye comforter. 

** _I think I have an idea… but it would involve some stealth. Let me know if you’re up for the mission, fellow detective. _ **

She adds the detective emoji; it seems mysterious. But she also didn’t want it to seem like she was _ actually _proposing a mission, so she adds a wink. Stonewall Betty does not have time to be second-guessed. Stonewall Betty only has time to make out with her maybe-boyfriend. As soon as possible.

** _i’m riveted, tell me more_ **

Betty backs up against the bookcase, feeling light headed already, but the temptation to draw out his excitement is too much.

** _I’m in the stacks, thinking about how secluded they are, wishing you were with me_ **

God, she can’t send that. Is this sexting? Maybe this would send the wrong impression. Betty may want to follow her impulse to climb him like a tree but she _ does _ want to date him, too. Jughead is smart and charming and witty and adorable. She wants to eat breakfast with him and his friends. She wants to stop by the security office and have his dad make stupid jokes about giving them space. She wants to write poignant investigative articles with him for the _ Herald _ and get them both scholarships for college. She wants to sit by him during chapel and have him draw slow circles on her palm with his thumb. A shiver shoots up her spine at the thought. Betty erases the text. 

** _I have a roommate-free dorm tonight and thought it would be nice to hang out without interruptions. Maybe a few less mops. Do you have a key, or do you need to lie low with that? _ **

Her phone starts vibrating. He’s calling her. What teenager _ calls _people? She half-sprints to the door, answering on what is surely the final buzz.

“Hi!” Betty answers, sounding manic and not at all cool and suggestive. 

“Hey,” he responds, much more calm, but maybe he’s nervous. “Sorry, I just thought this might be easier. But I shouldn’t need the keys. Most people just have a friend cover for them and… Toni should be cool about it.”

Of course, there is obviously a standard operating procedure for sneaking into the opposite sex’s dorm. “Not your first rodeo?” is what slips out, and Betty finds she’s kind of intimidated by the answer in advance.

But Jughead laughs. “What? No, Betty, I don’t… I just know what other people do.” His voice gets a little quieter at the end, and Betty blushes. He’s never snuck into a girl’s room before? What is wrong with the straight girls of Stonewall? 

They agree on nine o’clock—late enough that most people won’t see him come in, but early enough that Toni could reasonably suggest that he slipped out before curfew, forgetting to check out with the dorm mother. “If you get caught, you end up on a list that won’t allow you into the other dorm _ ever _but the system is so flawed that it’s pretty hard to get caught. And I’ve got a good reputation.”

Betty teases, “You’re so good, it’s easy to be bad?”

He clears his throat. “Um, something like that.”

  
  
  


Betty leaves the door cracked open just a hair. She showers before dinner, taking the time to shave her legs, which seems ridiculous, but she does it anyway. After dinner, she focuses on curling her hair. A touch of makeup, but nothing more than she would wear to class. Except some lip gloss. Betty wanted to make her intentions known. She dons her most comfortable pink joggers and a white camisole, the edges of her favorite pink bra just visible over the hem of the back. 

Perched on her bed, trying but failing to read _ The Secret History, _ Betty startles when Jugheads slips in almost silently, taking off his red security jacket that she assumes he wore for the sake of cover. The deviousness makes her smile, but she’s not ready for the explosion in her chest when he returns it. 

“Hey,” he greets, his voice low, almost as quiet as a whisper. Betty remembers a middle school sleepover when the other girls cooed about how sexy a guy’s voice could be. Only now does she have any idea what they were talking about.

“Hi,” she bites her lip, suddenly very self conscious of how hard she’s _ tried, _ her curled hair, her nice bra. _ Stonewall Betty is not embarrassed. Stonewall Betty knows that Jughead should _ be _ so lucky. _Still, she feels frozen in her perch on her bed. Should she hug him? Kiss him? This probably came across as a booty call, but suddenly, she feels a little vulnerable, a little hesitant. Is it wrong that she just wants to talk to him for a while?

Jughead scans the room, startling when he notes the nude portrait he’s standing next to. “Oh wow, that’s, um—” He’s blinking rapidly, looking flustered, like he’s not sure he should definitely turn away or if that would seem immature. (Betty knows because she has that reaction several times per week; she really ought to rotate her bed so she isn’t staring directly at it so often.)

An involuntary giggle escapes her, more nervous than anything. “It sure is.” Her voice seems to give him the permission he’s craving to turn away from the painting, deep red and his throat bobbing. 

So Betty latches onto the first conversational entry point _ other _than Veronica’s naked form that comes to mind. “What does the S stand for? Security? Stonewall?” She gestures to his t-shirt.

Jughead lets out a relieved breath, and then covers up his embarrassment with a smirk. “I would have thought by now that you wouldn’t take me for someone quite so literal.”

It’s not an answer, but the joke sets her breathing at a normal pace again, and she pats the spot on her bed nonchalantly. He takes the space beside her eagerly, reaching over and squeezing her foot, and then seeming to regret the action, a flash of panic across his face. Betty catches the hand in her own, lacing their fingers together in reassurance. 

“How was the office shift from hell?”

Jughead relaxes again. “Very boring. My dad takes a lot of pride in this job, which means I get roped into a lot of intense project upkeep. Hence the filing. But very uneventful, other than a few papercuts.” He waggles his other hand, and Betty reaches out for that one, too, bringing it to her mouth for a soft kiss. 

She whispers, “All better,” and Jughead stares blankly, then gulps. 

Maybe she’s not too bad at this after all. 

“Um, how was your day?”

Betty’s heart floods at how genuine he sounds. She’s not sure if anyone has ever asked her that, wanting to really know. Sure, Alice would ask, but she wanted to know about quiz grades or accolades. Kevin wanted to know if she overheard anything exciting and scandalous. Archie wanted to hear that she was good, that she would smile back at him no matter how bad the weather or how early the morning or how unstable her mood. Jughead asks like he wants to hear the true answer, and that alone makes her want to kiss him really, really bad.

“It was okay. I talked to my sister for the first time in—” She catches herself, realizing that Jughead doesn’t know anything about her family, about why she showed up at Stonewall mid-term. A tiny voice with the same affectation as her mother advises caution. But his open, unblinking blue eyes urge the absolute opposite, so Betty starts again. 

“My mom sent me to Stonewall because my older sister, Polly, who _ was _ in college, got pregnant and is at home now. Taking time off. Hiding our family shame or whatever. And my mom took her phone away for a while, so I finally got a hold of her today.” 

Now he’s blinking, but out of bafflement, and his hands grip hers a little tighter. “Holy shit. That’s… that sucks. Is she okay?”

Betty lets a breath melt out of her at his concern. “I have no idea, honestly. She seems torn between excitement and being upset that my mom won’t let her tell her boyfriend. It’s… my mom is insane, Jug. I don’t know how to describe it.”

He shrugs, as if this drama is run-of-the-mill. “I know about difficult parents. My mom is… not great at being a mom either.”

Now it’s Betty’s turn to squeeze his hands, and she gives him space to continue, if he wants to. There is a moment when she thinks he might, but instead he smirks. “I’m guessing your mom would not be particularly happy to know about the latest addition to your _ extracurriculars,” _he teases with a raise of the eyebrows.

Betty laughs. “I’m not sure if you mean the clandestine undercover journalism or breaking school rules to have a boy in my room, but you’re not wrong about either. But _ this _ is probably worse.”

Jughead stares at her, suddenly intent and serious again. It pulls at Betty’s gut in a good and fearful way. “You’ve really never done this before?” she murmurs, annoyed that her voice betrays her insecurity.

“No, Betty,” he replies, earnest but a little bit amused, like he can’t believe that she’s surprised by that. 

“Then why me?” she asks softly, her thumbs running a swift path along his hand. He shudders a little and Betty relishes the reaction.

“Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” That low voice is back, and Betty has to resist her own shudder.

“Since last night?”

“Since I first saw you. Since you didn’t take Haggly’s shit. Since you looked at me and I thought, maybe, you… thought it, too.”

_ You have no idea, _ she thinks, but the words don’t come out—instead, Betty leans in, her knees balancing clumsily as she presses their lips together softly. Jughead disentangles his hand to cradle the side of her head, already deepening the kiss. Just as she had in the closet, Betty feels her body go slack, folding against his sturdier-than-expected frame. He smells good—it’s cliche to be intoxicated by something so utterly basic as dude-smelling body wash or deodorant or whatever it was, but it serves as the nerve tingling reminder: _ there is a boy in my bed. Jughead Jones is kissing me in my _bed. 

Jughead winds his other arm around her waist, pulling her flush with his chest, and _ god _ he’s warm. Betty feels desire coiling in her belly, and she wills her thighs not to tremble, feeling dizzy with how intensely her body _ wants, _and how rapidly and intensely that feeling could devour her.

His same hand trails with light fingertips along her spine and she groans into his mouth, running her tongue along the seam of his lips in encouragement, finding her own hands have been working with a will of their own—one knocking off his hat and winding its way into his hair as an anchor and the other meandering along the hem of his t-shirt. _ Oh my god I’m already trying to tear his clothes off, _she thinks, her brain invaded with another Alice-like scolding that her fingers do not oblige because when she trails underneath his shirt to the warm, smooth planes of his stomach, Jughead doesn’t hesitate for a single second.

_ There is a shirtless boy in my bed. _ She’s running her hands down his biceps, wantonly gaping at him, realizing at this point— _ fuck it. _Betty pushes him flat on his back and straddles him for a second until Jughead yanks her flush to his body, their mouths colliding again with renewed frenzy. Betty thinks she could drown in this, the intoxicating feeling of his hands wandering closer and closer to her chest, the feeling of his hair between her fingers. She thinks that hours could be hurtling by and she wouldn’t notice, but also that time could be frozen, too. It’s a hyperawareness, of wanting to feel this way forever and the inability to imagine how to stop and still get a reasonable amount of sleep tonight. 

When he dips his head to her neck, Betty nearly whimpers, dissolving at the sensation of his lips marking her neck, her shoulder. His hands trail up her sides again and before she can think, Betty moves his hands to her boobs, relieving the frustration of having to imagine how electric his touch would feel, even over her clothes. Jughead leans up to kiss her so hard, she doesn’t have any time to second guess herself.

The sudden movement also shifts her off his lap, landing her straddling his thigh, and the sudden pressure _ there _is something she didn’t realize she needed. Distracted by moving his thumbs along the neckline of her tank top, Betty doesn’t even know if he feels her moving against his leg, lost in the irresistible want, his mouth back on her neck, his hair so soft, his smell so, so good and—

_ Holy fuck, holy holy oh my god _

Betty crushes her mouth on his, grips her hands on his shoulders and hopes he doesn’t realizing that she’s about to start shaking because she’s _ having an orgasm, _ at least she _ thinks so— _ not even sure she knew that could happen with so little intention, mortified to think that maybe he can _ tell— _

And then there is a shriek, travelling mutedly from down the hall. Jughead snaps back, jostling her. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmurs. “What was—” but Betty shushes him, hearing what sounds like soft laughter and then a gut wrenching silence. 

“Maybe you should—” but Betty doesn’t even finish her sentence because there is a knock on the door. Panic shoots through her, and she feels the shock course through Jughead, as if it’s traveled through their connected bodies.

(She can also still feel a pulsing pleasure radiating from her core, which clashes against the feeling that her throat might close up out of fear.)

Thankfully, Jughead seems to think more quickly than she does, leaping off the bed and rolling underneath it, snatching his hat and the red jacket. Heart pounding, Betty stands to get the door, dragging the pink tie-dye covers over the edge to shield as much of Jughead’s visibility as possible. 

The door swings open just as Betty stands, revealing Veronica clad in black bodysuit and high-heeled thigh high boots. “You have ninety seconds to be at the base of the stairs,” she whisper-sings, whipping out the door as quickly as she entered. _ What is going on? _

But Betty doesn’t want to give her roommate a reason to check back in. Besides, all the details were coming together—the diversion of “sleeping at Cheryl’s,” the day-long excursion away from Stonewall, the scream and shush—_ this is what she’s been waiting for. This is the reveal. _

So Betty scampers to her mirror. There is a hickey darkening on her shoulder, her lips are swollen, her nicely curled hair now mussed. If she weren’t so on edge, she might take longer to appreciate how debauched she looks—all at Jughead’s hand. Scraping the messy strands into a bun, slipping her feet into her untied keds, Betty swivels for something to throw on to hide the marks Jughead made with his lips.

Oh god, Jughead. 

Footsteps outside her door send her reaching for the first thing she sees, Jughead’s inside-out shirt. Not daring to turn it right side out in case anyone recognizes the S, Betty slips it on. “Jug, are you gonna be okay?” she whispers.

“I’ll be fine once whatever parade this is gets over, but _ go _before one of them comes back.”

“I’ll text you, okay? Or we can just meet—”

“Betty, it’s alright, just _go now.”_

  
  
  


Veronica meets her midway down the stairs, her classic cat-like grin flashing across her face. Betty can’t read whether it’s because she knows something or whether she’s just relishing the reveal of whatever the hell this business is. “In the name of sisterhood, do you swear to see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing?”

Betty suppresses a shiver and feels herself nod, feels the blindfold wind around her eyes and tighten behind her head. “Follow me, sister,” Veronica beckons, taking Betty’s clammy palm in her cool, smooth hand. 

They leave the dorm, but Betty takes so many stairs that she loses count. She’s too busy fretting about whether Jughead will make it out without being seen to keep track of how many directions they turn, how many times Veronica tells her to duck, how many cold, stony walls she has to grip to steady herself. There are other shuffling feet, there must be other girls. _ Sisterhood, _ she thinks. _ Is this a sorority? Hazing the new girl? _

Hypothesizing helps the fog of her mind clear, and so does the progressive chill of their walk. Betty gets the sense that they’re going _ down, _not out. This isn’t the woods at least. The air smells damp, too, and Betty begins to feel like they’ll never stop walking. Jughead’s shirt is soft, but it’s also worn and fairly thin. At least, she prays, it looks like a sleep shirt. 

Finally, Veronica says, “Stop, kneel here. Do you swear, in the name of sisterhood, to see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing?” 

She’s on something that feels like stone, the cold seeping through the cotton of her pants as she carefully lowers herself. Betty nods again, but only when she professes a firm, “yes,” her voice so loud and clear that it seems to echo, does Veronica remove her blindfold. 

It is not an exaggeration to call the room a dungeon—it’s dark, damp, and windowless, like the inside of an old stone box. The room is lit by dozens of candles, or rather the amalgamation of new and old encrustations of wax, waterfalling out of their metal candelabras. Five other girls kneel around Veronica, Cheryl, and three senior girls Betty only recognizes from passing in the hallways. Despite the candles, it is too hard to see the other girls kneeling except for Ginger, from the field hockey team, who is closest to Betty.

Cheryl, clad in a red lace dress with enormous bell sleeves and a gold necklace that wraps around her neck with an indecipherable twist, takes hold of a candelabra with brand new candles.

“Sisters, welcome. This evening, you enter into a sacred place, the den of Eden. Like our mother Eve, you have been chosen for your hunger, for your curiosity, for your competence.”

_ What the actual fuck, _Betty thinks, resisting the urge to gape. Had she bumped her head getting out of bed? Was she actually passed out in her dorm room? Is this an orgasm-induced hallucination? She pinches herself discreetly, but all she feels is the expected burst of pain.

“When Stonewall was founded, only five women were admitted to the first class, introduced only to prove that the school was best suited to teach men. That they would fall to the bottom. That they would not amount to the same great aspirations of the boys.”

_ That was definitely not included in the brochures, _Betty scoffs internally.

“But even that first year, at least one of them rose to the top of the class. Year after year, our sisters before us proved that our mother, Eve, was not foolish or sinful to follow the bidding of the Serpent. What men have called our curse—discovery, hunger, yearning—has been our key to knowledge and wisdom.”

Betty wracks her brain for a single clue as to where the hell this was coming from. Veronica didn’t have any weird religious affinities. If anything she critiqued the way Stonewall had handled equitable—_ oh. _ Entire dinner conversations started clicking. The incessant questioning. The pleasure in Cheryl’s eyes when Betty said she intended to take over the _ Herald _ from Jughead. Veronica’s pleasure when Betty refused to be intimidated in English class. It was all an entrance exam, and now Betty had passed.

“We are the Sisterhood of Serpents. A society of women, for women. The best of their class, here to protect the legacy of the women of Stonewall now and for generations to come. To fight when we must, and to reach the highest places of our field. To support one another at _ any _ cost.”

That’s when she makes out the shape of the gold twisted around Cheryl’s neck; it’s a snake. Betty chances a glance around the room. It’s hard to make out faces, but Betty is certain that Ethel is not among them. Surely, the qualifications are not limited to grade point averages and extracurriculars. Betty can almost hear Veronica pursing her lips and responding to such an inquiry with _ a Serpent Sister must have a certain… je ne sais quoi. _

_ (Something in her air and manner of walking, _Betty imagines quoting back.)

“For our survival and the protection of our sisters, Serpent or civilian, you must swear an oath of secrecy. Whether you survive initiation, rest assured that your discretion is the only thing separating you from your demise.” Cheryl’s voice curls threateningly around every word, wielding her sharp consonants like a knife. 

Veronica clears her voice, stepping in for Cheryl. “The Serpents are as old as Stonewall. We sit in every branch of government, every industry. You are not joining a club. If you are chosen, you will be a part of a family with immense power.”

_ To hurt or harm, _ Betty hears, unspoken. This all seems so far-fetched; Stonewall can’t have _ that _ far of a reach in the real world. 

“Pledge sisters. Your initiator will now have you repeat your oath and drink from the Cup of Wisdom.”

Veronica approaches Betty with a tarnished bronze cup. “Sister Betty, will you embark on this journey, promising yourself to the protection and progress of your sisters?”

There is nowhere to go, Betty accepts, but down the rabbit hole. _ Drink me, _ she thinks, as Veronica passes the cup. She nearly chokes on the sharp, burning liquid. _ Whiskey? _she wonders, but there is an extra sweet burn on the end of her tongue once she coughs it down.

Cheryl’s voice shifts from mythic-scroll-reader to her usual extra-sharp demand. “For the duration of your initiation, which shall last a fortnight, you shall be restricted from the pleasures of the four Bs.”

Veronica grins slyly at her girlfriend. “No booze, except what we provide for you,” she cooes, ticking off a finger. “No bongs,” she continues, “by which I mean no drugs of any kind.” She swivels and sets her gaze on Ginger. Betty remembers seeing her exchange money for a couple pre-rolled joints from Toni the night she spent wallflowering in Ginger’s room.

Ticking the third finger, Veronica casts a devious glance at her girlfriend. “No breasts. By which, I mean other ladies, which Cheryl has insisted I include first because they are her preference.” Veronica winks gratuitously. 

“But last, and by all means, not least for many of you,” Veronica spins slowly, locking eyes with each pledge until she lands on Betty. “No boys.”

Steeling herself, Betty manages to meet Veronica’s eyes without flinching, despite her urge to gulp. Despite the fact that she can suddenly feel the hickey blooming on her shoulder start to ache. 

“Celibacy and sobriety, symbols of your utter devotion to your Serpent Sisters for two weeks. Stand now and join us.”

Betty tries not to tremble as she stands, sure that Veronica’s eyes falling on her on _ boys _could not have been an accident.

* * *

Jughead doesn’t have a shirt on. 

Usually, he is pretty averse to hanging around shirtless; he’s not _ unhappy _ with how he looks, exactly, but he has never felt the need to casually not wear clothing. Jughead leaves that habit to Fangs and Sweet Pea and half of the boys’ dormitory. 

In this instance, though, Betty Cooper has removed his shirt so Jughead is definitely not upset about that. Even though both the girl who removed his shirt and the shirt in question are both gone, Jughead still isn’t mad. 

Curious about the whereabouts of the girl and his shirt—the girl _ in _ his shirt, he self-corrects in a smug thought—yes. 

Out of his mind turned on, also yes. 

Jughead’s brain is torn in too many directions now, all of which are related to Betty Cooper. Betty and her pink pants and pink tie-dye bedspread and pink lacy bra he was really looking forward to seeing and the pink splotch he left on her neck that he hopes turns purple underneath the worn collar of his shirt; Betty pulling at his shirt mere moments after he began kissing her, Betty who somehow believes she is someone unworthy of the affection of others, let alone these new, intense feelings he has for her; Betty who, he _ thinks _ (holy shit, he’s _ pretty sure) _ came while grinding on his thigh as he kissed the soft skin of her neck and desperately hoped he was doing this right. 

(He must have done _ something _right because there really could have only been one thing that the strong shuddering and strangled groan meant. Jughead wants to hear that noise on a loop until the day he dies.) 

Betty, who was subsequently whisked away by Veronica Lodge of all people for some clandestine outing. This means two things: one, that Betty was right about Veronica being up to something, and two, that Jughead is going to have to _ take care _ of things on his own. 

Not that he expected Betty to take care of things, Jughead hadn’t been under any pretense that Betty’s hands might go anywhere near his waist tonight, let alone _ inside _his pants.

_ Christ, _though, this is unbearable. 

For the briefest of moments, Jughead considers the fact that he is alone and would be for quite some time—a luxury one is almost never afforded when living at school. It would be fucking insane to do this in a room not his own, let alone the room of the girl he _ has _ this boner for when she is not there. 

(Right?) 

(_Right, Jesus, get your head on straight, you piece of shit._)

It is a very long, very cold walk back to his own dorm. For once in his entire tenure at school, Jughead is grateful for the dumb security team jacket; the prospect of having to walk across campus shirtless to then explain his shirtlessness to his roommate is not ideal. 

Not that Fangs is around to call him out for it once Jughead returns. 

For this he is grateful, chucking the jacket to the floor and yanking his towel from where it hangs over his desk chair—still slightly damp from the quick shower he took before going over to Betty’s in the first place.

It feels marginally less creepy—but only just—to immediately jack off in the shower after kissing the girl you like for the second time. Jughead might feel more guilty about that if he weren’t so fixated on the searing memory of Betty rocking in his lap; she seemed to _ really _ enjoy their time together, so he likes to think she wouldn’t mind this too much. 

(He also likes to think that, if they had not been interrupted, this could have been the end result.) 

It is an embarrassingly short amount of time before Jughead is gasping for breath, his forehead resting on the tiled shower wall and one hand splayed out on the rickety stall door for balance. The ghost of Betty’s fingers trailing along his back and the phantom weight of her tits in his palms are more than enough to get him there, but it’s the mere thought of Betty coming apart _ in his lap _ that makes him come so hard he has to bite his tongue to muffle the shout breaking loose. 

He stays in the shower until he has his wits about him again, which takes far more time than he would like to admit. 

Fangs is still gone, so Jughead splays on his bed with the towel still wrapped around his waist and stares at the ceiling. 

What the _ fuck _ was this night? And where the fuck had Betty been beckoned to?

A quick glance at his phone tells him that only forty minutes have passed since their interruption, and that Betty must still be wherever the hell Veronica took her; there are no texts from her. 

He is dying to know what she is witnessing but also a little bit dying to talk to her in general; they hadn’t had that much time together this evening and he had been looking forward to their unofficial date, even if it hadn’t led to him shirtless in her bed. 

** _i’m going to be really sad if i have to ruin my pristine social status by taking down veronica lodge for your murder, _ **he types. 

** _give me the full run down if you’re not being watched like a hawk. _ **

The urge to ask for confirmation when she gets back safe is too strong to ignore, so Jughead follows up with a third text, ** _let me know if/when you get back in one piece?_ ** And then a fourth because he is so utterly gone for this girl: ** _goodnight, nancy drew_ **

The prospect of anything productive happening tonight was shot the moment Betty texted him earlier that day about meeting up, and it’s certainly not going to change after an extended bout of kissing and then Betty essentially being kidnapped by Veronica Lodge. 

He isn’t _ worried _ , per se, because there is only so much harm to be done in the middle of a prep school—then again, he remembers Betty placing her copy of _ The Secret History _down when he came in, so maybe he should be worried after all. But even after knowing Betty for a scant few weeks, Jughead knows she can hold her own. Hell, she’s held her own from being shipped here presumably against her will with no one the wiser about the emotional turmoil that may have caused. 

Betty will be fine. 

But that doesn’t mean he won’t spend hours playing a game on his phone so he can see a notification immediately once she is able to text him back. 

Eventually he must fall asleep, midgame, because his phone vibrates directly on his chest from where it had fallen out of his sleep-slackened grip, jolting him awake. 

It’s only his alarm, but as he blinks against the brightness he sees that he has a text from Betty. It is timestamped from 2:40am. 

** _Hi Juggie, sorry we’ve been back for a bit already but I needed to wait for Veronica to fall asleep before I pulled my phone out. She’s definitely going to stick to me like glue for the foreseeable future which makes things complicated. I have to write everything out longhand so I’ll remember as much as I can. Weird, weird shit but I was totally right. Meet you in the Herald office after breakfast?_ **

The use of _ Juggie _ tugs at his heartstrings a bit, usurping the confusion he feels over what Betty alludes to. It’s still early—he has a Sunday alarm purely to make sure he doesn’t sleep through breakfast—so he resets the alarm for an hour from now and burrows back under his covers. 

Jughead is intrigued, exhausted, and fighting the fantasy of Betty whispering, gasping, _ moaning _ that nickname into his ear. 

He’s going to need another shower before breakfast, goddammit. 

This must be what it feels like to be Sweet Pea or Fangs on a daily basis, Jughead thinks. His best friends are walking towers of hormones, if their constant innuendos and not-infrequent dates are anything to go by. It’s not that Jughead was ever against the idea of sex before, but merely… uninterested. And then Betty Cooper walked into his life, all sass and soft smiles and investigative prowess, and it’s like something unholy has awakened inside his brain, shaking loose all his baser instincts. 

_ Late bloomer indeed, _he scoffs, thinking back to a comment FP made when Jughead suddenly shot up about a foot between freshman and sophomore year. He sleeps for a while longer, fitfully, with his thoughts full of every noise Betty has made so far when they’ve touched, how he could go about eliciting even more variations of them. 

Even after breakfast and an enormous coffee, it is hard to focus. He’s been in the _Herald _office for a couple hours now, doing his best not to repeat text Betty (he’d sent a **_sounds good_** and smiley face when he’d woken up the second time) and failing to not indulge in some very specific fantasies about spending time with Betty in this office. 

They are harder to stave off now that he knows what her mouth tastes like and remembers the phantom pressure of her body on his and he’s leaning back in the chair imagining her in his lap and _ for fuck’s sake he needs his head out of the gutter. _ There’s that Haggly paper and he thinks maybe an upcoming Spanish exam and while Jughead would like nothing more than to daydream about peeling Betty’s tank top and bra off, he needs to get something done during this excruciating wait. 

He is only marginally productive once he forces himself out from behind the editor’s desk and slips into a rickety student desk, zeroing in on his verb conjugations because at least drilling concrete information keeps his head on straight. 

Sort of. 

Past subjunctive verbs start swimming into blurs in his notebook when the office door cracks open and Betty slips inside. 

She’s being quiet, stealthy. Checking behind her as though to make sure no one is watching her. 

Did she regret last night? Is she making sure nobody sees her spending time with him? Has something Veronica or Cheryl said finally sunk in and now Betty is ashamed to be seen with him? 

The prospect of having to be her dirty little secret has his bagel churning over uncomfortably in his stomach, his neck flaring fire hot, and Jughead suddenly wants to be anywhere but here. What if she’s here to break things off? Sweet Pea and Fangs must have hearts of lead in order to have felt this way over and over and not feel like their whole world implodes when one fling ends. 

When Betty turns around after closing the door with all the carefulness of defusing a bomb, Jughead’s jaw locks and his arms tense, like he’s about to fend for his life. He feels frozen, caged in. _ Mad, _even. These are hard things to pull off when crunched into an old desk, but it makes them no less real. 

She looks surprised to see his expression, her eyes blinking in soft confusion and her face dropping from its sly smile. “Jug?” 

He watches her swallow hard, remembering when she did that under the press of his lips last night, and has to take a deep breath. Jughead refuses to be the first one to flinch. Realization dawns on her, eyes flicking behind her to the door she so carefully closed and then to Jughead’s stoney face. 

“_ No, _ no Jughead, I promise I want to be here.” Betty rushes over and crouches down beside him, drawing his face to hers with her hand. “It’s a very long story but I swear that I am not embarrassed to be here or to be seen with you.” Suddenly her face goes very pink and she bites her lip. “Okay I’ll admit that I am a _ little _ embarrassed after I, um—”

Jughead finishes for her, relief washing over him, “—came in my lap?” He’s an idiot, that’s for sure. But it feels good to hear her reassurance, good enough that he is more than happy to tease her. 

Pink turns to brick red and she ducks her face, making a sort of strangled yell to herself. 

“Don’t be embarrassed, Betty. That was—_ god _ , that was super hot, okay?” He unfolds himself from the desk and uses the leverage to offer Betty a hand to help her stand up. “Trust me—” he places both hands firmly on her waist, gently pulling her flush against him “—when I say—” presses a kiss under her jaw, grinning to himself at her shudder “—we can have a repeat of that—” another kiss, at the hollow of her throat, then up to the opposite side of her jaw, just under her ear “— _ whenever _ you want.” Jughead kisses her fully now, letting her sigh of relief lead it into open-mouthed, but soft. It is not the frantic, charged kissing of the two days prior; he wants her to know that he would happily take more of that but also that this means _ more _ than just that to him. 

It’s a lot of words to pour into one kiss, he’ll admit, but when they break apart, Betty’s eyes are shining before she bites her lip bashfully and glances away quickly, and he thinks she understands. 

“We can do that again,” Betty asserts. “Probably without the interruption and subsequent kidnapping for a secret society initiation, though. A girl can only handle so much when she’s trying to spend time with her crush.” 

His mind has to skip over _ crush _ and right to _ secret society initiation. _“A what now?” Jughead prompts. 

“Have you heard any old Stonewall stories about the Serpents? Or maybe it’s Serpent Sisters? Sisterhood of the Serpents? Some of the wording is still a bit foggy.” 

“They didn’t drug you, did they?” Jughead blanches with alarm, given her overnight comment about reinforcing her memory. 

“No, no, it’s that I’m running on practically no sleep. There was rum, but that came after the speech. I have my notebook in here,” Betty starts digging through her backpack but not before taking a huge drag of her coffee. “The too-long-didn’t-read is that Stonewall only allowed a few women to come here when founded, primarily to have them fail so they could continue on as a boys’ school. Instead the women kicked ass and decided to form this sisterhood of sorts to ensure a powerful alliance of women can graduate with just as much prestige and honor as the men.” 

Jughead tries to process. “Why the ‘serpents’?” 

“The Serpent that tempted Eve, apparently. I think the allusion is mostly for show since the logic itself is a bit backward. Eve was seduced to eat the apple, she didn’t choose to eat it of her own free will. Unless _ we _ are the serpents, offering the world to women, though that’s still us as the devil offering evil cloaked as enlightenment. But who am I to question a century of classist proto-sorority nonsense?” Betty rolls her eyes and then hands him a small blue Moleskine. “I wrote down what I could remember on the back pages. Um,” she pauses. “This is my actual journal, too, so maybe don’t flip through the rest?” 

Of course he never would, but Jughead is already a bit turned on by her rant so instead teases her once more. “Why, have you been writing down your sex dreams in here?” he taunts, smirking. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Betty quirks an eyebrow and then leans in. She kisses him fully, with tongue, and walks them backward until Jughead feels the editor’s desk at the back of him. “They were pretty vivid the last couple of nights. Wonder what might have possibly changed to make them so realistic…” 

He feels under a spell; Betty Cooper, if she desired it, could probably bend the will of any man to do her bidding. Lucky for Jughead, she is only using this power for good. _ Make that evil, _Jughead groans with a drag of her tongue on his jaw and a sharp press of her middle against his tightening pants. An evil he is more than happy to succumb to if it means he can slide his hands up under the softness of her sweater until he feels the lace-trimmed edge of the bra he didn’t get to see last night. 

The little scalloped fabric provides the perfect location to rub his thumb lightly back and forth where it lands after he curls his palms around her sides. Her resulting shiver sends one of his own down his spine and once again Jughead finds himself willing to drown in this sensation. Betty brings out an unexpected calmness in him; socialization alone makes him frantic and he’d expected that this brand new level of intimacy would send him through the roof, but all he feels around her is a rare freedom from self-consciousness. 

Betty pushes closer, which didn’t feel possible, considering that they are practically glued together with every inch of their skin lined up alongside each other. The move has the hard wood of the desk cutting into his hipbone sharply enough for him to give a startled huff, but the sound is lost between their mouths until she groans low in her throat. Much like last night, there is this instinct he barely understands urging Jughead to spin them around and lay her out on the table. They seem to be on the same page because Betty initiates the change in position, turning to hop up on the desk and draw him closer with her legs. When those same—incredible, poetry-inspiring, _ lithe _—legs lock around his ass, Jughead barely knows how he stays conscious but for the sheer force of will to experience every millisecond of this. 

This position allows him the opportunity to use the hand that had been cradling the back of her head to run up and down the back of one thigh where it rests on his hip, from the dip of her knee all the way up to the firm handful of her ass. Where both of his hands are definitively occupied, Betty can’t seem to decide where to hold him. Her hands dance between the soft spot under his ear, his too-long lock of hair falling out from his beanie, then grasping at the back of his shirt as though about to tear it off him again, then tracing up his chest, resting on his (barely there) abs, winding around his neck. 

He is positively burning up with her touch, and what a way to go. 

Jughead has just mustered up the courage to inch his thumb up under the cup of her bra, excited at the prospect of smoothing _ up, up, up _and hoping she might grant him the luxury of holding even one breast bare in his palm when a loud buzzing causes Betty to jump. 

She winces, retrieving her phone from the back pocket of her jeans without extracting herself from his grip and turning the screen to show him Veronica’s contact name calling. Jughead starts to pull his hand out from under her shirt but she uses her own to keep it in place. 

It’s a ballsy move, he thinks, to answer this phone call from the terrifying head of a secret society in charge of her initiation while keeping the hand of a social pariah barely an inch away from her nipple. 

“Hi, Veronica, what’s up?” 

Jughead begins ministrations on her skin again, soft and reassuring versus their earlier hungry intent, listening to the way her throat buzzes with each agreeable murmur and ignoring that Veronica Lodge is on the other end of her phone. A surprising strike of protectiveness bolts through him and he brushes a kiss to Betty’s temple as she hangs up. Her aggravated sigh has him dropping his hand for real, and she doesn’t stop him. 

(In fairness, his other hand is still on her ass.) 

“Another pledge kidnapping,” Betty sighs. “I really needed to do homework today, too.” 

“So don’t go,” he suggests in vain. 

“I can’t. I don’t know if I’ll go through with this all the way, but I’m too curious to drop it entirely. But—” Betty bites her lip, not trying to be seductive (but damn if that doesn’t make him want to release it with his own teeth.) “—the part I didn’t get to is that the pledges are expected to take an ‘empowering vow of celibacy’ during all of this. Veronica definitely suspects something is up with us and I nearly flashed her the hickey you left my when I got dressed this morning.” Jughead flushes with what he thinks is pride and Betty smirks at his expression. “That’s why I was shifty coming in, Jug, that’s all. I promise you. If she catches on that we’re—um—_together_, she might purposely make things difficult and then we won’t be able to get anything reportable.” 

Her choice makes sense; it’s _ smart _and Jughead is proud to be with—whatever that vague term may mean—with someone as intelligent and savvy as Betty. 

“Well this sucks. Guess I’ll be needing more cold showers.” He means to mutter it to himself, but Betty rears back with a raised eyebrow. 

“Oh, really?” she teases. 

“Not that I was expecting anything, trust me, but you did leave me a bit high and dry last night.” 

“Oh, poor Juggie,” she pouts and Jughead’s dick twitches. 

He stamps a defiant kiss on her lips. “Don’t be mean.” 

“I would never.” And she wouldn’t, he can tell. Her voice softens to something sincere. “I wasn’t expecting anything last night either. This is all new to me and I thought I’d be nervous or more embarrassed or something, but I feel—I don’t know, I feel _ safe _ with you already, you know?” 

He kisses her again, longer and softer. Jughead does know, and tells her as much. “We’ll figure it all out together. Both the secret society mystery and—well, _ us _ and whatever that may entail.” 

Betty’s phone buzzes again. “I need to go before she sends a search party.” 

“Go, go,” he urges. “Be secretive and don’t let anybody poison you.” 

She’s gone in a flash and a smile and Jughead is left in silence. 

Homework is a nonstarter now, not when the only way Jughead can stop thinking about Betty is to dive headfirst into this secret society bullshit. He doesn’t love, even on an objective safety level, that this group locks up phones and doesn’t allow for anybody else to know of initiates’ locations. Yes, if there were a real emergency, he supposes he could trust Veronica Lodge to do the right thing and call for help; Cheryl Blossom, not so much. Whatever hazing is going on so far doesn’t seem _ too _extreme but Jughead has heard the horror stories of university hazing and under no circumstances does he want to hear of Betty—or anybody else—being waterboarded with vodka. 

_ Christ, okay, no more of that Google search. _Jughead instead sets his sight on Stonewall History itself, a task far better suited for the library stacks but he feels far too antsy about his motivations being discovered for such open research. He starts by scouring the online catalog, marking down call numbers for biographies of the founders, anything published by the school press, and all variations of “Stonewall Through the Years” histories. Then there are the digitized archives—a technical marvel that has him simultaneously praising the silicon valley gods and mourning the idea of huddling next to a microfiche with Betty in a dark library basement room—which hold every single piece of school communication from the very first print announcement of its founding in the local papers.

_ A team of elite academics from the best schools America has to offer are banding together for their newest venture: a university preparatory school to teach the next generation of great thinkers. _

Jughead scoffs aloud. “More like a bunch of old, obnoxious rich white guys spending money to train the next generation of obnoxious rich white guys.” 

He’s not wrong; both that announcement and the transcription of the first swearing in ceremony—_ swearing in ceremony, _is this the goddamn military—lists 75 young men with names even more obnoxious than his own, and only five women. 

That’s them, he supposes. The original Stonewall women who were so fed up with the patriarchal bullshit and misogyny of the first years at this damn school that they formed their own alliance. The ‘sisterhood formed on knowledge and wisdom,’ per Betty’s scribbled notes. Their premise makes sense, and he will admit that he doesn’t begrudge them their desire to band together to go up against the unfairness of purposely being set up to fail. Women were still barely admitted to most universities back in the 1860s, let alone admitted to a preparatory school designed as a feeder school toward Ivy Schools that most certainly would not have wanted their bullshit fraternal orders disrupted by intelligent women. 

_ Why _ though, would an organization of women need to stay so underground? Why not, once feminism swept the nation and the female student body grew, let this Stonewall sisterhood be an opportunity to all? 

Jughead knows the answer before he’s finished thinking the question: those first five women were still from some of the richest families on earth, it’s why they were given that opportunity. As universities and prep schools admitted more women, they also admitted students of color and students who weren’t rich as sin. That sisterhood became the _ Serpents _to build their own exclusive club, to only admit who they deigned to take note of—likely only the other rich white girls at Stonewall. And even if that wasn’t the original intent, that is certainly the spirit of what is happening now if Cheryl is at the helm, despite Veronica as a Latinx co-conspirator. Betty noted that she could only recognize Ginger Lopez, but that there were about five or six ‘initiates’ and a group of twelve or so existing sisters. Even if the group were limited to only upperclassman girls, that is a comically small percentage. 

His annoyance builds into a small fire of rage in his chest. Jughead isn’t sure what these initiation rites will consist of, and whether Betty may eventually change her mind about this expose—she seemed sad and wistful when talking about her sister and he gets the feeling she is lonely and might _ want _ this opportunity for friendship. But at bare minimum he really wants to bring to light the inherent classism of this school, from turning scholarship students into narcs out of necessity, all the way to a clandestine group that plays favorites with girls who only fit their precise requirements. 

Jughead is crabby now, and digs around his snack drawer for a sleeve of Oreos. The crunch is unsatisfying. It is hard not to quash the immediate thought that the only _ satisfying _ thing he wants now is more of Betty. Betty who is god knows where with Lodge and Blossom and the queens’ suite of cards and for as much as he’ll happily replay the feeling of her skin under his fingertips, and as much as he knows she can _ more _ than handle herself, Jughead also knows he won’t feel settled until she’s safely in her dorm. 

He needs a walk; he possibly needs to track down Toni, someone who he has a nagging feeling wasn’t at Betty’s insane night, but who may still know about it. 

Bookmarking his searches and downloading all the relevant pdfs, Jughead—reluctantly—texts the group chat with his friends that he mostly keeps muted. It will be harder to keep this lowkey, both Betty _ and _whatever the Serpent Sisters are, if he tries to pull Toni aside with someone else there. 

Sweet Pea sends weight lifting emojis because of course he does, followed up with a ** _come join me and fangs, sculpt something for your blonde friend to gawk at for real. _ **

Toni calls them both pigs, then notes her location of the student lounge. When Jughead appears there and dumps his belongings down next to her a little while later, she raises an eyebrow. 

“I’m not giving you girl advice, Jones.” 

“Who says I’m here for girl advice, _ Topaz? _” 

He’s met with a scoff and then Toni is leaning far too close to him with a gleam in her eye. When she reaches out to swipe her thumb across a spot on his neck, Jughead bristles at the tenderness under the pressure. “This fucking hickey, that’s who. Would not have guessed Cooper had it in her, or you for that matter, but damn.” 

“Shit,” he mumbles, feeling his face heat up. It’s less embarrassment over the mark itself—which, if he thinks about it, is hot in its own way—and more that it serves as a neon sign blinking brightly, ‘Jughead Jones has feelings and is now very vulnerable’. 

Toni’s smirk softens, reading his discomfort. “Uniform will cover it, don’t worry. If you plan to see more of Cooper, though, maybe tell her to use those fangs a bit lower under the collar. Or are you here because you don’t know if you’re going to see more of her?” 

More flames lick up his face. “Uh, no,” he coughs awkwardly. “That’s not exactly my issue. But would you mind keeping it under wraps? I don’t really want tweedle dee and tweedle dumbass to go nuts and draw attention to it. It’ll just make things more uncomfortable. For both of us.” 

“Jug,” Toni says sharply. He looks up, confused by the fierce look on her face. “If Betty Cooper is ashamed to be with you in public, then you kick her ass to the curb. Or I will.” 

Deep down, Jughead is touched by the loyalty of his friend. But _ this _ he needs to course correct, lest Betty’s situation with Veronica and Cheryl get blown to smithereens. “Toni, I swear it’s not that. _ Neither _ of us want a million eyes pointed our way if we’re trying to sort out what we are doing. When have I ever wanted anyone at this godforsaken place to know my business? It’s not only Betty’s privacy we’re talking about here.” 

Toni seems to retract her claws. 

“But,” he edges. “While we’re on the subject and since I’ve already ripped my beating heart out of my chest and handed it to you”—Toni coughs something that sounds a lot like _ drama queen _—“can you tell me of any whacked proto-sorority-slash-secret-society shit you might know about? Particularly those run by a certain terrifying couple, one of whom is Betty’s roommate?” 

When Toni’s eyes narrow, Jughead knows his hunch was right. 

“I _ might _ have heard whispers about something I wasn’t supposed to hear when I was with my field hockey ...friend. I also might know better than to stick my nose into anything Lodge and Blossom are plotting unless I wanted that nose cut off. Some clandestine upperclassmen bullshit that I am sure I’ll never know more about because of bygones that will never be official bygones.” 

Jughead tries not to laugh at the memory of Toni’s ill-fated, extended flirtation with Veronica their freshman year. It was as undefined as all quasi-relationships are undefined at age 14 and Jughead knows Toni couldn’t care less, but it seems to be a transgression Cheryl will never forgive. What he doesn’t know is which half of the flirtation Cheryl was most jealous of. 

“And you’ve never heard of anything, regardless of whichever terrifying Stonewall seniors were involved?” 

“Why seniors specifically?” Toni hums in question. “We’re all juniors.” 

“Those two strike me as the kind of people who would want to reign for as long as possible. Come on, every single organization on this campus is led by seniors, with the exception of me on _ The Herald _and those two on whatever the hell the Serpents are.” 

Her head quirks in recognition. “Okay, _ that _ sounds familiar. I don’t know the context, but I’ve definitely heard serpentine comments. I assumed it was hetero bullshit about girls stealing boyfriends, a snake in the grass and all that,” Toni waves her hand dismissively. 

“Do you think you could push on your field hockey friend for info? Betty is pretty sure Ginger is involved too.” 

“Oh, hell no, Jones. Whatever battle you and Blondie are trying to fight, I want no part of it. I don’t need Cheryl poisoning the cafeteria coffee just so you two can get your rocks off playing detective. Take her to the ratchet movie theater in town to grope in the back row like everybody else.”

Toni cuffs him on the back of the head, sort of affectionately but also with sincerity, and walks off, leaving Jughead with no new information and the tantalizing thought of movie theater groping. 

  
  
  


The next morning, Jughead’s bad mood from the day before has only intensified. Betty didn’t get her phone back until late and he didn’t press for details—or flirt—only because her brief text betrayed her frantic worry about losing the whole day of studying. He wakes up extra early in the hopes of catching Betty before English Lit without her chaperones and is sorely disappointed when they practically frog-march her into the classroom just before the warning bell. There’s a pang in his heart at the tired glaze of her eyes, the extra large coffee cup in her hand, and the lack of sleep evident on her face; he wouldn’t be surprised if she pulled an all-nighter to stay afloat on all her makeup work. 

It takes an extra deep breath to reign in the impulse to give Betty a reassuring hug, and smack the smug look off Cheryl’s face when she preens mockingly at him. 

Jughead might be imagining things when he sees Betty flick her eyes in his direction for the briefest of moments, tap two fingers against her coffee cup, and then pull her metal water bottle from its pocket of her bag. “I need to refill,” he hears to murmur to Veronica. “Headache.” 

He hopes he isn’t imagining things, and hopes Betty doesn’t actually have a headache, when he exaggerates his movements and kicks over his mostly-empty coffee cup where it sits on the floor. “Ah, fuck.” Heads swivel in his direction, including Haggly’s who looks less than amused. 

“Your mess to clean up, Mr. Jones. Get to it. I’ll mark you tardy if you aren’t back before the bell.” 

The threat is worth it when he ducks out of the classroom, and runs headlong into Betty. “Oh thank god,” she sighs. “I wasn’t sure if my sleep deprivation meant I overestimated that plan’s effectiveness.” 

Finally, he is able to wrap his arms around her and Jughead feels her sag into his grip. “They’ve claimed, like, all of my free time so it’s going to be difficult this week.” Even her pout is adorable; he kisses it away fiercely until it turns into a grin. “Can we hang out after the staff meeting tonight? I haven’t gleaned too much intel, but...” she trails off, suddenly shy. Her cheeks turn pink before admitting, “I don’t want to not see you today.” 

Warmth unfurls in his chest and Jughead has to stamp another kiss to her lips. “Get through the day, we’ll hide away from your captors tonight.” 

The second bell rings and Betty’s eyes widen before she skitters off, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder. He takes his sweet time getting the paper towels from the men’s room afterward because, honestly, who cares after that. 

(Haggly cares. She calls out his tardiness, much to Veronica and Cheryl’s delight, even earning a taunting snicker from Sweet Pea, whom Jughead plans to punch after class.) 

Jughead is just as distracted at lunch, only coming to notice the conversation around him when Fangs throws a bag of chips at his head. 

“Lover boy, get your head out of the gutter,” he crows. 

Once again, Jughead can’t help but wonder how anybody else functions with all these surging hormones. 

Now it’s Sweet Pea punching his arm. “Dude, come on. Do you have any idea what this meeting your dad called is about?” 

“There’s a meeting?” That’s ...unusual.

“Yeah, man, check your email. ‘Mandatory and highly urgent.’ You’ve got no clues?” 

Jughead shakes his head, still stuck on all things Betty. 

The news of the security staff meeting dampens the excitement of a text from Betty reading, ** _We’re allowed to actually do our homework today without ‘sisterly’ babysitters, see you at The Herald! xx’. _ **One a separate message line, she sends a series of emojis: a pink heart, the stack of books, the female detective, and the male detective. 

It doesn’t dampen things too much, considering he reads it in the editor’s chair in the _ Herald _ office and immediately flashes to the way Betty had greeted him in that very chair on Friday evening, legs kicked up and a challenge on her face, then the sounds she made in the supply closet, _ then _the sounds she made in his lap when they were in her dorm room. 

For the second time in as many days, Jughead finds himself searching for the moral line in the sand on the subject of semi-public masturbation. 

_ Cut the shit _ , he tells himself harshly. He has to assume these quandaries were ones that his peers had also dealt with at some point, thinking back to when locker room jokes in the eighth grade took a bewildering—to him anyway—turn for the crass. Do people normally function with this level of horniness on the back burner? A couple of weeks with one crush and only three days of first-time making out and Jughead can’t even focus on article assignments for this month’s issue of _ The Herald. _ Without patting himself on the back too much, Jughead gets the impression that Betty is similarly distracted; he can’t imagine how overwhelming it must be for her to acclimate to Stonewall on its own, let alone do so while dealing with family drama, being initiated to a secret society, _ and _suffering from all-consuming thoughts of she might next get her hands under his shirt. 

(He’s noticed already that it’s her go-to movement once they start kissing harder. It may finally be time to stop wearing so many layers.) 

His hunch is confirmed moments later when Betty skips through the office door and practically launches herself at him, though only for a hug. Not that he’s complaining either way. 

“This secret society shit is exhausting,” she mumbles into his sweater. Jughead strokes a hand up and down her back, relishing in the way her tension dissipates with each pass of his palm on her spine. 

“Did you sleep at all last night?” 

“Barely.” Betty is still talking directly into his chest, burrowed entirely into the embrace and Jughead feels what he thinks is something akin to contentment. “I had to wait for Veronica to fall asleep before I could write everything down again, then I had a French assignment due today.” 

“Early bedtime today, okay,” he insists. 

As though he is someone with enough sway in Betty’s life to demand this of her; he panics for a fraction of a second that he’s overstepped. Yet he’s surprised again: “I will, Juggie, I promise,” whispered this time into the space below his Adam’s apple, before the heat of her breath is replaced with that of her lips trailing up to his jaw, then his mouth. 

They stay this way for a while, entangled in each other and pressing light kisses over and over, until Jughead catches sight of the clock over the doorway. “We’re about to have a bunch of very annoying J-school wannabes in about 90 seconds, Betts.” 

She pulls away with a pout, then perks up with a gleam in her eye. “Yes, sir, Mr. Editor-in-chief, sir,” she salutes and then perches herself into a chair, sitting primly. 

_ Christ on a fucking cracker, _Jughead swears. She’s going to be the sweet, sweet death of him. 

The part of his brain contemplating the speed at which he can slam and lock office door and yank off Betty’s uniform blouse shuts up promptly when a group of chattering sophomores come through said door, shortly followed by Dilton, then Cricket O’Dell, the only senior who didn’t pitch a fit when Jughead was assigned editor-in-chief. They each eyeball Betty in turn, though Dilton gives an awkward wave to her, and then Trula, one of the sophomores, shouts a perky, “Hi, Jughead!” that sets her crew into titters before staring very hard at Betty’s position in the chair directly across from Jughead. 

He watches Betty’s expression shift to a more neutral, inquisitive one, away from the one he has come to recognize as her wanting to yank off _ his _ uniform, to assess the rest of the staff. The sophomores don’t hide their whispers about the new girl too well and Jughead knows that if he can hear a couple of the uncharitable comments from up front, Betty most certainly can. His blood simmers, mind running quick changes to the assignments purely to dick over the girl who called Betty a THOT for being so early to her first meeting (he hates that he knows this phrase, but Fangs watches a lot of TikTok videos when he’s supposed to be studying). 

It’s easy to know where to swap her, as his position on the paper has turned him into a memory machine when it comes to all things _ Emerald Herald. _There’s a reason he’s the first junior editor-in-chief and it’s not because he slouched into meetings 10 minutes late, like the trio of seniors who are counting on hierarchy to guarantee them halfway decent assignments. 

Their loss, since he’s on edge and not in the mood. There’s the due diligence of introducing Betty as a new staff member, and the resulting round robin of names, extracurriculars, and favorite articles they’ve written. Jughead notices that Betty does not mention her conversion therapy exposé from her old school, a piece of journalism picked up by professional outlets and the first hit on Google under her name and ‘Riverdale.’ 

(Does nobody in this damn school do their homework? He’s sure everyone did their best to stalk a new classmate’s social media presence, but clearly no one even thought to check their first choice for all classwork research to find out they don’t need to debate Betty’s merit on campus, it’s already earned.) 

The meeting is tedious and there’s a twitch in his left eye by the time they finish. It’s surely brought on by the sheer number of things that have happened in the last few days and brought into actuality by Dilton once again pitching his survivalist column. 

It’s the only reason he cedes. “Bring me two written columns, plus a list of topics that could carry us through the semester, _ with _your regular assignment, and we’ll test the first one on the website this month, okay Dilton?” The poor kid looks so thrilled that Jughead wishes he hadn’t given in out of pity and frustration.

Jughead calls the meeting after that, with a half-hearted shout that he needs more copyedit team volunteers, more than ready to eat dinner and go the fuck to bed, but of course it’s barely evening. Betty, naturally, hangs back, but the sophomores dawdle uncharacteristically. They only leave after Betty stands, speaking with extra diction, and says, “Um, Jughead, can you remind me what timeline I’m writing on since you wanted the extra time to review my first piece?” 

When the door shuts behind them, Betty rolls her eyes. “You know that girl Trula has a crush on you, right?” 

“What?” He is genuinely confused, even more so when Betty laughs and shakes her head. 

“You really have no idea how alluring you are, Jones.” A piece of her hair has escaped her ponytail with the fidgeting she’d done during the meeting and she draws close enough for Jughead to tuck it behind her ear. 

“You may need to remind me how alluring _ you _find me, Cooper.” 

And she does, looping her arms behind his neck and leaning in to press a feather light kiss to the corner of his mouth. “It’s more than just your looks, you know,” she murmurs. 

“I do have it on good authority that people don’t hate my general presence, yes.” It’s a deflection and they both know it. 

“Really, though.” Betty is insistent, kissing him harder and on the mouth, but too quick for him to really savor it before she pulls away and smooths a thumb over his furrowed eyebrow. “I’m brand new and was suddenly dropped into amateur undercover journalism and you’re just… you’re like a lifeline for me, Jughead.” 

How did he luck out to find this girl, Jughead wants to know. How did nobody _ else _ luck out before him? 

He cannot quite find the words and so rubs his hands up her sides, feeling unusually bashful. 

Betty opens her mouth to speak again but as is their pattern, they’re interrupted. This time by Jughead’s own phone; Toni, calling to yell at him because FP wanted to start the team meeting right at 5. 

“Fuck,” he swears apologetically. “Last thing I need is my dad pissed off. Text later?” 

Betty nods, jumping up to kiss him on the cheek and then he’s sprinting out the door and out onto the lawn. He hadn’t given much thought to Fangs’s comment about the meeting earlier, but as he jogs down to the small tin annex of a building, Jughead does acknowledge how odd this is. They have half-hearted ‘meetings’ where FP buys them all pizza every few weekends to shoot the shit, but nothing as formal as an email requesting all their presences. 

Breathing hard, Jughead pushes through the door to the building, nodding a hello to Grimley at the front desk and skidding into the break room. 

“Gee, thanks for joining us, Jughead,” FP sighs. “As I was just telling your classmates who had the good sense to show up on time, we’re having a bit of an issue. Dr. Beaker reported some more serious theft from his chemistry lab this weekend. Serious enough that we may need to call in the local PD.” 

  
  
  


** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless y'all eternally for patience with us, and we hope this finds you having survived over half of 2020, and provides some delight! 
> 
> we thrive on providing the bughead mystery fluff for these dark times, but we also thrive on your comments if you are so able to drop us one! <3


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